CI  Bk. 


THE  ETHEL  CARR  PEACOCK 
MEMORIAL  COLLECTION 

Matris  amori  monumentum 


TRINITY  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


DURHAM,  N.  C. 
1903 

Gift  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Dred  Peacock 


\ 


A   S  E  K  M  O  N  : 


SHOWING  THAT 


IN  THE  UNITY  OF  FAITH  IS  THE  UNITY  OF 
THE  CHURCH; 


AND  THAT 


BAPTISM  IS  NOT  AN  ORDINANCE,  BUT  A  RITE; 


NO  ONE  MODE  OF  BAPTISM  CAN  PROPERLY  BE  MADE  A  TERM 
EITHER  OF  CHURCH -MEMBERSHIP  OR  OF 
CHRISTIAN  FELLOWSHIP. 


8/ 


BY  THE  REV.  LOVICK  PIERCE,  D.D., 

OF  THE  SOUTH  GEORGIA  CONFERENCE. 


Nasrfjbtlle,  Cemt.: 

PUBLISHED  BY  A.  H.  BEDFORD,  AGENT,  FOR  THE  AUTHOR. 

1869. 


PREFACE 


The  following  discourse  was  first  delivered  before  th  e 
Kentucky  Annual  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  in 
Frankfort,  in  September,  1868 ;  afterward  in  Broadway 
Methodist  Church,  in  Louisville,  Ky.,  at  the  request  of  Dr. 
Liun,  the  pastor.  Its  publication  being  earnestly  asked  for, 
both  by  the  Conference  and  the  congregation,  I  could  not 
well  refuse.  I  had  neither  notes  nor  manuscript  of  it  at  that 
time,  but  judging  that  it  was  my  general  view  and  course  of 
argument  that  was  sought  after,  I  have  reproduced  them  in  a 
somewhat  enlarged  form.  The  argument  will  be  found  in 
accord  with  the  objects  set  forth  in  my  general  title.  I  have 
used  the  words,  "Justified  by  faith  alone,"  exegetically,  not 
literally.  I  have  sought  to  give  no  offense ;  and  although  I 
combat  with  opinions  and  cherished  usage  in  a  sister  Church, 
I  am  in  Christian  unity  with  that  Church  in  my  heart. 

My  object  is  to  show  that  no  religious  value  can  be  put  into 
any  service  on  account  of  mere  mode  or  manner,  and  that, 
consequently,  immersion  can  be  of  no  more  religious  value 
than  sprinkling  or  pouring.  If,  therefore,  any  one  reviews 
this  discourse,  taking  exceptions,  his  exceptions  must  be  to 
the  soundness  of  its  theology,  or  of  its  philosophy,  or  else 
his  exceptions  will  be  regarded  as  hypercritical  by 

THE  AUTHOK. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/sermonshowingtha610pier 


SERMON 


"  For  ye  are  all  the  children  of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  as  many 
of  you  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ.  There  is  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female; 
for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  if  ye  be  Christ's,  then  are  ye  Abra- 
ham's seed,  and  heirs  according  to  the  promise."    Gal.  iii.  26-29. 

An  analysis  of  this  text,  such  as  it  seems  both  to  invite  and 
to  demand,  I  purposely  avoid,  because  it  would  break  into  my 
conception  of  a  fair  exegesis. 

My  first  postulate  is,  that  the  unity  of  the  faith  implies  and 
teaches  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

The  term  Church  must  be  disabused  of  its  popular  idea,  in 
order  to  a  just  conception  of  its  unity.  There  are  sects  which 
believe  absolutely  that  they  are  the  Church  as  far  as  divine 
legitimacy  goes — the  "elect  lady"  Church.  These  all  look 
to  the  absorption  of  all  other  Christian  communities  into  their 
organization,  because  theirs  is  the  Church  This  is  their  idea 
of  unity ;  but  in  the  text,  the  real  idea  of  it  is  found  in  the 
actual  relations  of  the  membership  to  God.  They  are  the 
children  of  God,  not  through  denominational  alliance,  but 
by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus ;  and  the  true  Church — the  body  of 
Christ — is  made  up  of  God's  real  children.  Christ  is  the 
Head ;  all  true  believers  constitute  his  spiritual  household — 
his  body.  Hence  the  sin  of  schism.  All  usages,  therefore, 
which  divide  true  believers  into  legitimate  and  illegitimate 
members  of  Christ's  body  on  account  of  outward  forms,  so  as 
to  admit  to,  or  exclude  from,  the  communion  of  saints  in  the 
Lord's-supper,  entail  the  guilt  of  schism  upon  those  who  adopt 
and  defend  them. 

The  Church  of  Christ  has,  with  great  fitness,  been  called 
"the  Catholic" — that  is,  the  universal  Church.    The  General 


6 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  were  written  upon  this  prin- 
ciple, and  belonged  equally  to  every  Church  —  everywhere. 
Moreover,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  fc>  be  considered  the  gene- 
ral Church,  because,  while  some  claim  to  be  of  Israel  who  are 
not  of  Israel,  yet  some  true  believers  are  to  be  found  in  all  the 
evangelical  organizations  of  the  world,  and  the  true  bond  of  kin- 
dred affiliation  is  justification  by  faith  alone.  None  who  enter 
into  the  visible  Church  with  a  faith  that  merely  recognizes 
Christ  as  chiefest  among  the  saving  agencies  of  the  soul,  while 
they  willfully  supplement  his  merit  by  exalting  some  ideal  of 
their  own  into  a  ground  of  Church-fellowship  and  sacramental 
communion,  can,  or  do,  belong  to  the  body  of  true' believers. 
The  work  of  the  whole  corps  of  ministerial  and  official  build- 
ers, provided  by  divine  appointment  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Church,  as  detailed  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Ephesians,  was  to 
find  its  complement  in  bringing  the  saints  "in  the  unity  of 
the  faith  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God  to  the  measure 
of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ."  The  real  oneness  of 
faith  was  a  prominent  conception  of  St.  Paul's.  One  Lord, 
one  faith,  one  baptism,  were  utterances  settling  at  once  the 
chief  questions  likely  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  infant  Church. 
This  the  apostle  did  by  asserting  these  three  central  ideas,  or 
facts.  For  one  Lord  there  could  be  but  one  faith,  and  for  one 
Lord  with  one  faith  there  could  be  but  one  baptism.  This,  of 
course,  was  the  Christian  baptism,  whatever  we  may  hereafter 
determine  that  to  be,  only  adding  now,  that  one  baptism  does 
not  mean  one  mode  of  baptism.  Eor  the  present,  I  confine 
myself  to  the  individuality  and  specialty  of  faith. 

St.  Paul  was  set  by  divine  commission  for  the  defense  of 
the  gospel.  The  points  which  he  did  mainly  defend  are  wor- 
thy to  be  noted,  for  these  constitute  the  sum  of  the  gospel. 
These  points  were,  first,  that  the  Christ  he  preached,  was  the 
Christ  promised  and  prophesied  of  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Paul  did  not  preach  Christ  as  a  bold  dog- 
matist, but  as  an  expounder  of  prophecy.  Thus  at  Thessa- 
lonica  he  reasoned  out  of  the  Scriptures,  opening  and  alleging 
that  it  was  foretold  that  Christ  should  suffer  and  die,  just  as 
the  Christ  he  preached  had  done.    In  his  Epistle  to  the 


Sermon  on  Gal.  iii.  26-29. 


7 


Hebrews,  lie  draws  out  of  Jewish  types  and  symbols  the  gos- 
pel which  they  only  veiled,  so  as  to  show  that  they  were 
shadows  of  things  to  come,  and  of  which  Christ  was  the  body. 
He  therefore  declares  that  in  Christ  dwelt  the  fullness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily — that  is,  really,  and  not  as  the  symbolic 
images  of  the  tabernacle  and  the  temple  had  shadowed  them 
forth,  and  that  he  was  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  and 
the  express  image  of  his  person.  Paul  knew  no  gospel  but 
that  in  which  Christ  was  the  substance  and  the  sum. 

His  second  point  in  the  defense  of  the  gospel  consisted  in 
the  explanation  of  the  Abrahamic  covenant  as  of  perpetual 
force  in  its  original  gospel  disclosure  of  the  imputation  of 
faith  for  righteousness.  On  this  foundation  he  argued,  that 
as  a  confirmed  covenant  could  not  be  altered  so  as  afterward 
to  have  more  or  less  in  it,  and  that  the  Abrahamic  covenant 
was  confirmed  of  God  in  Christ  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years  before  there  was  any  ceremonial  worship  established, 
and  that  it  never  was  a  ceremonial  service,  but  remains  over, 
with  all  of  its  evangelical  principles,  promises,  and  blessings, 
to  the  Church  so  long  as  the  Church  keeps  covenant  with  God 
through  Christ.  It  was  upon  the  promises  made  to  Abraham 
and  his  seed — which  seed  was  Christ — that  Paul  was  sent  as  a 
special  apostle  unto  the  Gentiles;  and  his  being  set  for  the 
defense  of  the  gospel,  refers  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  his  mission, 
both  to  Jews  and  to  Gentiles,  was  to  unfold  the  Abrahamic 
covenant  in  its  doctrines  and  promises,  and  especially  the  cul- 
mination of  it  in  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles  through  him. 
Hence  the  terms  of  the  covenant  and  the  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  are  declared  to  be  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
to  Abraham  by  the  Lord  himself.    (See  Gal.  iii.  8.) 

St  Paul's  third  point  in  his  defense  of  the  gospel  is  clearly 
set  forth  in  Eom.  iii.  27,  28,  where  he  teaches,  that  as  justifi- 
cation is  by  the  law  of  faith,  and  not  by  the  law  of  works, 
therefore  it  is  without  the  deeds  of  the  law — that  is,  independ- 
ent of  any  thing  deriving  its  religious  value  from  its  legal 
exactness.  Here  let  all  immersionists  pause  and  ponder  Paul's 
special  emphatic  assertion  of  this  fact :  the  independence  of 
faith  upon  all  works  of  religious  merit.    In  this  light,  the 


8 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


silly  conception  of  God's  taking  any  more  pleasure  in  baptism 
by  immersion  than  in  baptism  by  affusion,  if  the  motives  of 
the  different  subjects  were  equally  pure,  is  supremely  absurd. 
The  same  rebuke  may  be  administered  to  all  High-church 
notions — the  efficacy  of  sacraments  after  priestly  consecration 
— the  imposition  of  episcopal  hands  in  an  official  line,  on  the 
assumption  of  a  succession  from  the  apostles,  conveying  grace, 
and  giving  validity  to  ministerial  acts,  irrespective  of  the  inner 
life  and  character  of  the  persons  ordained — regeneration  by 
baptism,  because  it  is  canonically  administered — and  all  the 
sequences  of  their  pretentious  theory  ought  to  stand  abashed 
and  dumb  before  the  apostle's  grand  doctrine  of  justification 
by  faith  alone,  without  aid  from  any  outward  forms  or  legal 
issues.  The  glory  of  Christianity  was  to  be  recognized  by 
the  breaking  down  of  the  middle  walls  of  partition  between 
the  members  of  Christ's  mystical  body,  and  all  were  to  have 
access  through  Christ  by  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father.  If,  how- 
ever, the  high  selfish  dogmas  of  either  of  these  Churches  are 
true,  we  are  just  as  much  under  legal  necessities  now,  in  order 
to  Church-unity  and  fellowship,  as  if  some  of  the  old  ecclesias- 
tical Jewish  laws  had  been  incorporated  by  divine  proclama- 
tion into  the  Christian  economy.  But  the  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion by  grace  through  faith  proceeds  upon  the  ground  that 
grace  cannot  save  us  only  through  faith,  and  thus  disposes 
for  ever  of  the  boastful  conceits  of  Antinomian  minds  about 
sovereign  grace.  There  is  no  sovereign  grace  only  in  reference 
to  those  whose  salvation  is  of  sovereign  mercy,  as  in  the  case 
of  infants.  But  where  obedience  is  a  debt,  salvation  must  be 
obtained  through  faith  working  by  love.  In  Kom.  xi.  5,  6,  we 
have  this  special  definition  of  this  great  matter.  Paul,  show- 
ing that  in  the  darkest  days  the  Church  had  ever  seen,  God 
had  still  a  remnant  of  believers  left  according  to  the  election 
of  grace,  thus  illustrates  it:  "And  if  by  grace,  then  is  it  no 
more  of  works,  otherwise  grace  is  no  more  grace.  But  if  it 
be  by  works,  then  it  is  no  more  of  grace,  otherwise  work  is 
no  more  work."  Herein  the  apostle  declares  that,  in  human 
salvation,  the  ground  of  it  must  either  be  in  the  merit  of 
works,  which  would  render  grace  useless,  or  else  of  grace, 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


9 


which  renders  the  merit  of  works  a  hopeless  reliance.  The 
combination  of  the  two  in  the  salvation  of  a  fallen  sinner,  is 
an  absurd  conception.  Nor  does  any  thing  we  are  commanded 
to  do  change  the  ground  of  our  salvation  in  the  least,  for  we 
are  not  now  commanded  to  do  any  thing  on  the  basis  of  law, 
but  all  we  do  is  to  be  the  obedience  of  faith — faith  working 
by  love,  and  without  which  we  cannot  please  God.  But  the 
obligation  to  do  a  thing  in  the  obedience  of  faith,  cuts  us  off 
from  doing  any  thing  acceptably  as  a  legal  formality.  Hence 
the  blight  and  bane  of  every  species  of  ritualism  which 
teaches  that  the  acceptableness  of  any  service  depends  upon  a 
mode  prescribed  by  a  divine  law.  Now,  no  religious  duty  can 
be  safely  performed  under  looseness  of  faith  at  this  point. 
For  example,  take  a  full  believer  in  immersion  as  a  divine 
ordinance.  He  cannot  receive  immersion  as  the  obedience  of 
faith,  because  he  embraces  it  in  its  mode  as  a  legal  require- 
ment, and  cannot  escape  from  the  baneful  evil  of  trusting  in 
his  legal  ordinance  instead  of  the  obedience  of  faith.  ]STow, 
the  obedience  of  faith  has  no  attachment  to  the  legal  observ- 
ance of  any  thing ;  and  if  the  mode  of  baptism  is  a  legal 
requirement,  it  is  not  of  faith  by  which  the  just  shall 
live,  because  the  law  is  not  of  faith,  but  goes  upon  the 
basis  of  legal  compensation.  I  fearlessly  assert  that  no 
man  can  be  immersed,  receiving  baptism  by  immersion  as 
an  ordained  mode,  without  resting  his  faith  in  a  danger- 
ous degree  upon  the  merit  of  modal  baptism ;  for  unless 
its  divine  value  is  in  its  modal,  which  is  its  legal,  merit,  then 
every  considerate  immersionist  must  confess  that  immersion 
is  of  no  more  religious  value  than  pouring.  I  repeat,  that  St. 
Paul's  particularity  on  this  point,  is  proof  enough  that  he 
could  not  allow  of  any  thing  as  of  sufficient  importance  to  be 
incorporated  with  faith.  The  simplicity  of  faith  was  its  essen- 
tial quality.  This  he  farther  illustrates  by  his  repeated  nega- 
tions, saying,  "  Circumcision  is  nothing,  and  uncircumcision 
is  nothing,  but  the  keeping  of  the  commandments" — by 
which  he  doubtless  means,  that  the  keeping  of  the  command- 
ments is  something.  John  says,  "This  is  the  love  of  God, 
that  we  keep  his  commandments."    The  keeping  of  the  com- 


10 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


mandments,  therefore,  is  of  the  same  importance  that  the 
love  of  God  is,  because  they  are  only  evangelically  kept  when 
the  love  of  God  is  the  sole  motive.  Again,  "For  in  Christ 
Jesus  neither  circumcision  availeth  any  thing,  nor  uncircum- 
cision,  but  faith  that  worketh  by  love."  It  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
that  neither  of  the  before-mentioned  states  is  of  any  avail, 
really  conveying  the  idea,  that  unless  Christ  could  furnish  the 
means  of  salvation  without  these  outward  auxiliaries,  he  could 
not,  as  a  'divine  Saviour,  with  them,  because  he  must  either 
save  by  his  own  merit  and  power,  or  else  conjointly,  by  an 
efficacy  which  he  had  put  in  them  by  an  ordinance  of  legal 
life,  and  thus  make  himself  dependent  on  outside  formalities. 
But  the  very  moment  you  admit  that  Christ  can,  out  of  his 
own  fullness,  make  his  children  meet  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  you  negative  all  religious  value  in  every  religious  act, 
so  far  as  relates  to  its  letter.  In  this  case,  as  in  the  other,  it 
is  admitted  that  faith  working  by  love  is  something,  yet  noth- 
ing of  intrinsic  value  so  as  to  constitute  a  consideration  for 
pardon,  but  of  conditional  value,  because  it  is  only  by  faith 
that  the  ungodly  can  be  justified,  and  that  faith  must  be 
abstracted  from  all  grounds  of  approval  but  Christ  crucified ; 
and  we  must  subtract  from  it  with  great  exactness  every  idea 
of  God's  complacency  toward  us  on  account  of  any  outward 
form. 

Paul  continues  his  negative  and  affirmative  propositions  still 
farther,  adding  yet  another  phrase  of  the  real  in  his  affirma- 
tive :  "  For  in  Christ  Jesus  neither  circumcision  availeth  any 
thing,  nor  uncircumcision,  but  a  new  creature  " — that  is,  really 
a  new  creation ;  a  change  in  regard  to  which,  even  circum- 
cision, venerable  though  it  was,  could  contribute  nothing,  nor 
the  want  of  it  in  any  way  hinder  its  accomplishment.  All 
this,  because  the  bestowment  of  every  heavenly  grace  is  shut 
up  to  faith  alone.  When  faith  came,  meaning  the  object  of 
faith — Christ  himself,  and  the  dispensation  of  faith  as  of  old 
ordained — then  hoary-headed  types  and  shadows  fled  away, 
and  the  grand  secret  of  the  atonement — that  believers  were 
complete  in  Christ — became  the  theme  of  inspired  apostles. 
If  Christ  had  not  been  the  complement  of  the  Father's  eternal 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


counsels,  the  all  in  all,  through  simple  faith  in  him  as  the  aton- 
ing Lamb  of  God,  the  evidence  that  he  had  to  supplement  his 
insufficiency  with  sacramental  ordinances  would  have  irresist- 
ibly weakened  faith,  because  common  sense  itself  assures  us, 
that  if  there  could  be  efficiency  enough  in  the  atoning  blood 
of  Christ  to  make  us  complete  in  him  by  simple  faith,  it  would 
be  most  to  the  glory  of  the  Godhead,  and  far  safer  for  his 
believing  people.  For  this  reason  there  is  no  sacramental 
efficacy  lodged  anywhere  in  any  form  or  ceremony.  To 
believe  on  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  spans  every  gulf, 
scales  every  mountain,  and  vanquishes  all  Satan's  troops  of 
doubt  and  unbelief,  enables  us  to  lay  hold  upon  the  hope  set 
before  us,  and  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  complete  in  him, 
needing  no  other  merit  save  the  merit  of  Christ's  death.  But 
a  word  now  on  this  "new  creation,"  or  this  being  "created 
anew  in  Christ  Jesus."  These  terms  mean  all  they  imply — 
that  is,  that  spiritual  regeneration,  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  is  more  than  any  conceivable  amendment  of  human 
life  by  mere  moral  reformation.  It  is  the  actual  installation 
of  a  spiritual  personality ;  the  passing  away  of  old  things,  and 
the  becoming  new  of  all  things.  It  is  an  entire  change  of  all 
the  affections  of  the  heart — a  substituting  of  the  carnal  appe- 
tites by  those  which  are  spiritual.  The  subjects  of  this 
change  become  spiritually-minded,  and  always  remain  so, 
unless  they  relapse  into  carnal  indulgences.  In  that  event, 
there  is  a  reversal  of  the  laws  of  this  spiritual  economy.  Two 
antagonistic  appetites  cannot  reign  in  a  voluntary  agent  at  the 
same  time,  and  the  one  that  does  rule  fixes  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  agent.  So  God's  word  plainly  declares.  (See  Rom. 
vi.  16.)  Patent,  however,  as  all  this  reasoning  is,  it  needs  the 
relief  of  careful  explanation.  This  new  creation  does  not  make 
any  change  in  the  mere  animal  organism  of  humanity. 
All  its  implanted  natural  appetites,  its  social  and  domestic 
affections,  remain  intact  in  as  far  as  they  were  divinely  given, 
and  require,  and  even  demand,  gratification  according  to  the 
provision  made  for  them  by  the  Creator  who  ordained  the  laws 
of  life.  Such  allowances  as  are  thus  provided  for,  may  be 
indulged  in  perfect  agreement  with  the  spiritual-mindedness 


12 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


involved  in  the  conception  of  this  new  creature.  All  of  it, 
and  all  that  is  in  it,  is  this :  that  this  person  walks  not  after 
the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit.  The  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus  having  made  him  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death,  he  is  a  new  creature,  because  he  has  put  off  the  old  man, 
with  his  deeds,  (a  total  abolition  of  carnal  policies,)  and  has 
put  on  the  new  man,  which,  after  God,  is  created  in  righteous- 
ness and  true  holiness,  or,  critically,  the  truth  of  holiness.  I 
will  give  the  following  simple  ideal  illustration  of  this  new-man 
state.  Consider  humanity  as  it  is,  a  complex  moral  machine, 
possessed  of  original  laws  of  life,  which,  although  necessary 
to  the  objects  of  the  Maker's  will,  could  be  run  by  depraved 
lusts  so  long  as  volition  accorded,  but  could  be  just  as  effi- 
ciently worked  by  a  directly  opposite  motive-power.  Now, 
this  new  motive-power,  in  active,  constant  application,  makes 
the  new  man.  The  carnal  affections  are  not  merely  substi- 
tuted by  the  spiritual,  but  they  are  destroyed  by  regenerating 
grace,  so  that  the  impelling  power  draws  all  its'supplies  from 
spiritual  sources.  The  authority  for  this  illustration  may  be 
found  in  Rom.  vi.  13-20. 

But  I  will  return  once  more  to  Paul's  negative  and  affirma- 
tive argument.  This  is  the  strength  of  his  defense.  On  this 
basis  he  farther  declares :  "  For  he  is  not  a  Jew,  which  is  one 
outwardly ;  neither  is  that  circumcision,  which  is  outward  in 
the  flesh.  But  he  is  a  Jew,  which  is  one  inwardly;  and  cir- 
cumcision is  that  of  the  heart,  in  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  let- 
ter; whose  praise  is  not  of  men,  but  of  God."  To  make  these 
negations  divinely  true,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  title, 
"Jew,"  is  a  mystical  title,  so  that  natural  descent  from  Abra- 
ham did  not  constitute  a  sacred  Jew.  Indeed,  this  distinction 
was  essential  to  the  spiritual  import  of  the  Abrahamic  cove- 
nant. Take  this  from  it,  and  it  would  sink  to  a  mere  national 
affair.  But  if  he  who  wore  the  name  was  a  Jew  inwardly, 
then  was  he  a  child  of  Abraham  by  faith.  Abraham's  spir- 
itual seed  alone  constituted  the  children  of  the  covenant. 
Circumcision,  also,  was  of  mystical  import.  Its  sacred  sacra- 
mental meaning  was  not  found  in  its  outward  fleshly  sign,  but 
in  the  heart  and  spirit,  drawing  its  praise  from  God,  and  not 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi  26-29. 


13 


from  man.  It  is  worthy  of  special  notice,  that  the  praise  of 
forms  is  always  of  man,  and  not  of  God. 

But  the  above  is  the  translation  of  Paul's  declaration  into 
terms  suited  to  Jewish  conceptious.  Let  us  put  the  text  into 
terms  suited  to  Christian  conceptions.  If  divinely  true  in 
reference  to  Judaism,  they  are  no  less  true  in  reference  to 
Christianity.  For  he  is  not  a  Christian  who  is  one  outwardly, 
(meaning  outward  only,)  neither  is  baptism  that  which  is  out- 
ward in  the  flesh,  (only  bodily.)  But  he  is  a  Christian  who  is 
one  inwardly,  and  baptism  is  that  of  the  heart,  in  the  spirit, 
and  not  in  the  letter,  whose  praise  is  not  of  man,  but  of  God 
— of  God,  because  it  recognizes  him  as  a  Spirit,  and  offers  to 
him  only  spiritual  sacrifices  and  worship.  Here  I  submit  the 
following  difficulty :  No  one  who  believes  that  baptism  depends 
on  the  "letter"  of  immersion,  can  ever  receive  the  baptism 
that  is  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the  Spirit,  and  his  praise 
of  it  must  come  of  men,  as  it  is  a  party  question,  and 
cannot  come  of  God,  because  it  exalts  the  literal  above  the 
spiritual,  and  subordinates  the  unity  of  the  faith  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  elders.  In  the  text  itself,  we  have  these  startling 
negations :  that  after  we  are  made  the  children  of  God  by 
faith  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  have  been  baptized  into  Christ, 
there  is  no  more  Jew  or  Greek,  bond  or  free,  male  or  female, 
because  we  are  all  one  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  These  words 
will  come  in  for  explanation  hereafter. 

At  this  point  I  propose,  in  an  argument  somewhat  elaborate, 
to  give  my  views  of  the  institution  of  Christian  baptism  as 
set  forth  in  the  text :  "  For  as  many  of  you  as  have  been  bap- 
tized into  Christ,  have  put  on  Christ."  That  these  words 
attach  to  baptism  some  conventional  importance,  all  must 
admit.  This  importance,  however,  I  shall  not  at  present 
attempt  to  show.  But  as  the  subject  of  baptism,  in  my  opin- 
ion, has  been  needlessly  complicated  with  various  errors,  I 
shall  try  in  this  discussion  to  disabuse  the  public  mind.  My 
views  of  truth  and  duty  will  compel  me  to  enter  a  caveat 
against  some  popular  and  long-cherished  ideas. 

I  begin  with  excepting  to  Dr.  Adam  Clarke's  admission,  in 
his  note  on  Bom.  vi.  4 :  "  Therefore  we  are  buried  with  him 


14 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


by  baptism  into  death."  Dr.  C.  very  unwisely  allows  that  the 
word  buried  might  allude  to  an  ancient  mode  of  immersion. 
Of  course  ancient  must  apply  to  a  time  anterior  to  Paul's  day. 
As  there  had  been  no  religious  acts  of  this  kind  performed  to 
which  he  would  have  referred  in  this  connection,  except  those 
which  arose  under  the  ceremonial  ablutions  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  I  venture  to  say,  there  was  not  one  of  all  these  ablu- 
tions that  had  any  kindred  similitude  to  any  thing  like  what 
the  believers  in  immersion  call  immersion.  It  may  be  that 
the  emblematic  washing  of  proselytes,  from  heathenism  to 
Judaism,  might  have  required  the  washing  of  the  whole  body ; 
but,  if  it  did,  it  was  a  washing,  not  a  mere  ivelting,  and  cannot 
lend  the  slightest  aid  in  support  of  immersion-baptism.  This 
idea  was  not  in  it  then,  and  cannot  be  deduced  from  it  now. 
Before  dismissing  this  long  misused  text,  I  will  endeavor  to 
place  it  in  its  proper  category.  "Buried  by  baptism  into 
death"  never  had  any  more  reference  to  any  mode  of  baptism, 
as  modal,  than  it  had  to  political  economy,  simply  because 
modality  had  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  object  of  his  argu- 
ment than  political  economy.  It  was  entirely  of  the  instru- 
mental end  of  baptism  that  Paul  argued  in  this  case,  and  of 
course  any  mode  of  baptism  would  have  suited  his  purpose — 
one  as  well  as  another.  It  is  illogical  to  conclude  any  specific 
mode  of  baptism  from  its  instrumental  use.  The  instrumental 
end  of  baptism,  of  course,  determined  the  sacramental  U3e  of  it. 
The  end  aimed  at  in  baptism,  in  the  apostolic  use  of  it,  was 
an  open  espousal  of  the  whole  doctrine  and  faith  of  Christ — 
Christ  crucified  for  us.  In  this  was  included  the  necessity  of 
his  death,  as  well  as  the  fact  of  it.  Hence  arose  the  propriety 
of  the  idea,  that  as  many  as  had  been  baptized  into  Christ 
had  put  on  Christ.  It  was  a  sacrament  of  espousal.  They 
were  identified,  assimilated.  In  the  same  sense  and  spirit, 
the  apostle  here,  speaking  of  the  baptism  of  believers  gene- 
rally, says,  "Buried  with  him  by  baptism  into  death,"  most 
especially  into  his  death,  the  necessity  of  it,  the  design  and 
end  of  it,  the  assurance  that  our  "  old  man  "  (that  is,  our  orig- 
inal sin)  was  crucified  with  him,  that  the  body  of  (our)  sin 
might  be  destroyed.    Every  thing  we  needed,  we  have  gained 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


15 


in  Christ  crucified — deliverance  from  this  body  of  death. 
Our  burial  is  not  in  baptism,  but  it  is  by  baptism  into  death — 
that  is,  really  into  the  acceptance  of  Christ  crucified — dead, 
buried,  risen — because  be  was  delivered  for  our  offenses,  and 
raised  again  for  our  justification.  0  what  a  pity  that  the 
avenues  of  faith  in  the  Church  should  have  been  clogged  with 
such  mummeries  as  immersion,  a  mere  modality,  being  of 
divine  appointment  and  divine  delight !  How  much  wiser 
and  safer  it  would  have  been  if,  instead  of  the  glorification  of 
a  modal  idea  of  baptism  on  which  God  looks  with  compla- 
cency, just  such  as  they  feel  who  magnify  it,  all  believers  had 
been  taught  to  believe  that  baptism  was  not  a  mere  mode, 
but  a  religious  ceremonial  rite,  in  the  use  of  which  every  true 
believer  is  understood  to  put  on  Christ,  who  is  to  be  followed 
as  our  model.  In  this  way  all  would  have  come  to  believe 
that  the  virtue  of  faith  is  alone  in  its  simplicity,  unmixed 
with  other  ingredients,  and  without  distinction  of  objects. 
It  is  not  worth  while  for  enthusiastic  immersionists  to  deny 
that  they  do  believe  in  some  saving  virtue  in  immersion,  as 
well  as  in  Christ.  This  they  sometimes  resent,  when  it  is 
alleged  on  our  part  as  an  objection  to  their  views.  But  the 
fact  is  self-evident  on  their  own  showing.  The  moment  they 
agree  that  there  is  no  saving  virtue  in  immersion,  they  place 
immersion  exactly  where  Paul  placed  circumcision,  when  he 
said  that  in  Christ  Jesus  it  was  nothing.  In  other  relations  it 
might  be  something,  but  in  Christ  Jesus  it  was  nothing.  So, 
also,  immersion  is  nothing  "in  Christ  Jesus,"  unless  there  is 
saving  virtue  in  it,  as  immersion  on  which  Christ  himself  is 
dependent  for  a  perfect  household  of  faith.  If  our  immersion 
friends  intend  to  vindicate  themselves  from  the  charge  of  bap- 
tismal idolatry,  in  the  homage  they  pay  to  immersion,  they 
must  admit  that  Christ  can  have  as  genuine  an  household  of 
faith  without  baptism  by  immersion  as  with  it ;  or  they  are 
left  to  the  dreadful  alternative  of  supplementing  the  defi- 
ciency in  Christ  by  the  virtue  of  immersion  in  baptism. 
Unless  they  put  the  virtue  in  the  mode,  and  keep  it  there, 
their  whole  economy  concerning  Church-membership,  fellow- 
ship, and  communion,  is  a  vainglorious  assumption.  Simple 


16 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


faith  in  Christ  makes  us  all  one,  while  faith  compounded  with 
immersion,  as  eking  out  the  merit  of  Christ  himself,  will 
divide  the  children  of  God  into  partisan  sects.  A  quarrel 
with,  and  a  repudiation  of,  believers,  on  the  ground  of  an 
outward  form,  is  Phariseeism  in  sad  mistake.  It  is  due  to 
myself,  and  the  perplexed  question  of  baptism,  to  say,  I  am 
no  bigot.  I  only  contend  that  there  is  no  saving  efficacy  in 
any  outward  form  of  baptism.  All  of  its  value  is  in  its  instru- 
mental use  and  end.  God  can  be  served  in  all  that  is  right 
in  principle,  irrespective  of  form.  He  cannot  be  served  in 
any  thing  that  is  wrong  in  principle  or  purpose,  no  matter 
how  imposing  the  form  or  how  plausible  its  defense.  "  Hay 
and  stubble''  maybe  used  for  building  upon  the  foundation 
laid  for  the  Church,  but  all  such  material  will  be  burned  up 
in  the  day  that  declares  God's  judgment.  Let  the  divine 
goodness  be  praised,  that  such  unwary  souls  may  be  saved ; 
yet  it  is  only  "as  by  fire."  The  hay  and  the  stubble  will 
perish.  I  therefore  take  the  ground  that  when  our  concep- 
tion of  religious  acts  is  wrong,  our  religious  faith  and  broth- 
erly affection  are  wrong.  Immersionists  are  all  grievously 
wrong,  because  they  judge  others  "in  meats  and  drinks" — that 
is,  in  outward  and  immaterial  things.  Now,  if  they  say 
immersion  is  not  an  immaterial  thing,  then  they  accept  the 
alternative  and  say  there  cannot  be  an  acceptable  brotherhood 
in  the  Church  of  Christ  without  immersion,  and  arrogate  to 
themselves  the  right  of  keeping  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  in  as  far  as  the  right  to  "  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his 
blood  "  is  concerned.  But  the  assumption  does  not  stop  here. 
If  they  are  divinely  right  in  their  practice  of  close  commun- 
ion, it  follows,  as  a  sequence,  that  no  Church  but  an  immer- 
sion Church  has  any  divine  right  to  have  any  sacrament.  If 
they  were  to  admit  that  we  have  a  divine  right  to  administer 
the  Lord's-supper,  and  then  refuse,  on  a  Church-platform,  to 
commune  with  us,  it  would  place  them  in  a  terrible  predica- 
ment. The  two  things  are  inseparable.  The  right  to  admin- 
ister includes  the  right  to  commune.  If  they  have  a  divine 
right  to  exclude  us  from  the  Lord's-supper  among  them,  on 
account  of  immersion,  it  is  because  immersion  settles  all 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


17 


questions  on  the  right  of  sacramental  rights,  both  within  and 
without. 

Our  next  field  of  investigation  is,  baptism  as  it  is  connected 
with  John's  baptism ;  and,  among  other  things,  to  consider 
Christ's  baptism  in  itself — in  itself,  because  it  was  neither 
John's  baptism  nor  Christian  baptism.    Of  John's  baptism,  I 
will  only  say  that  I  do  not  suppose  any  enlightened  immer- 
sionist  now  would  rest  his  immersion  for  one  moment  on  any 
issue  depending  on  John's  baptism,  either  as  to  mode  or  as  to 
origin,  unless  he  should  on  the  futile  notion  that  Christ  was 
baptized  by  John  as  an  example  to  his  children  to  follow  him 
in  going  down  into  the  water  and  coming  up  out  of  the  water. 
Well  do  I  remember  when  this  bauble  was  tossed  up  in  tri- 
umph by  every  advocate  of  immersion.    But  intelligent  Bap- 
tists would  be  ashamed  to  defend  immersion  now  by  such 
dreamy  dogmas  as  this.     They  know  John's  baptism,  as 
John's  baptism,  was  nullified  by  St,  Paul,  Acts  xix.  They 
know,  also,  from  John's  own  confession,  that  he  was  to 
decrease — that  is,  to  subside — and  with  his  subsidence  was  to 
subside  every  thing  which  had  its  origin  in  the  mission  of  a 
heraldic  preacher.    But  if  there  still  should  be  a  remnant  of 
these  old  Johnites  unwise  enough  to  live  on  this  milk  of  relig- 
ious ignorance,  they  are  objects  of  pity,  and  not  of  ridicule. 
The  intelligent  advocates  of  immersion  defend  it  now  from 
what  they  affirm  to  be  the  only  sense  of  one  or  two  Greek 
words.    Their  work  of  defense  will  be  duly  attended  to  in 
another  division.    At  present,  I  must  finish  my  review  of 
John's  baptism.    It  was  an  intermediate  baptism — neither 
altogether  Jewish  nor  at  all  Christian.    It  was  baptism  unto 
repentance,  summoning  the  subjects  of  it  to  believe  on  him 
who  was  to  come.    Let  this  sentence  be  specially  heeded,  for 
it  shows,  as  I  have  intimated,  that  John's  preaching  and 
John's  baptism  were  both  heraldic.    lie  came  to  prepare  the 
way  of  the  Lord,  and  to  make  his  paths  straight,  by  removing 
out  of  the  way  every  impediment  to  his  ministry.   This  was,  in 
part,  what  Christ  meant  when,  in  justification  of  John's  baptiz- 
ing him,  he  said,  "  Suffer  it  to  be  so  now,  for  thus  it  becometh 
us  to  fulfill  all  righteousness,"  even  the  legal  righteousness  of 
2 


18 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


the  divine  order.  I  understand  the  words,  "For  thus  it 
becometh  us,"  as  special,  meaning  that  this  "fulfilling  of  all 
righteousness,"  in  our  case,  is  emphatically  between  us — I 
must  be  ceremonially  washed,  and  you  must  officially  wash 
me.  Wherefore  John  yielded  to  Christ's  request  and  suffered 
him — that  is,  he  yielded  ,to  it  as  utterly  irregular,  having  in 
it  no  sort  of  relevancy  to  the  nature  and  objects  of  John's 
baptism.  It  evidently  looked  to  Christ's  entrance  upon  his 
ministry,  and  especially  his  High-priesthood  over  the  house  of 
God.  And  as  he  did  not  minister  after  the  order  of  Aaron, 
but  after  the  order  of  Melchisedek,  his  legal  consecration 
would  of  course  be  irregular.  Its  manner  he  chose,  but  its 
legal  necessity  he  openly  asserted.  And  now  as  to  the  point 
alluded  to  before,  namely,  the  order  of  Christ's  baptism.  I 
deny  that  it  was  either  John's  baptism  or  the  Christian  bap- 
tism that  Christ  received,  although  it  was  legitimately  called 
baptism.  John's  baptism  was  unto  repentance,  with  the  spe- 
cial injunction  on  all  its  subjects  to  believe  on  one  that  was  to 
come.  Both  of  these  conditions  were  wholly  inapplicable  to 
Christ.  The  Christian  baptism  was  designed  to  be  the  out- 
ward rite  of  initiation  into  Christ,  through  faith  in  him,  and 
could  be  performed  as  the  Christian  baptism  only  when  cere- 
monially done  with  water  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity — 
all  of  which,  as  the  doctrine  of  faith,  was  impossible  to  Christ. 
If,  therefore,  Christ  did  not  receive  John's  baptism,  and  could 
not  have  received  the  Christian  baptism,  then  the  idea  that  he 
was  baptized  in  Jordan  as  an  example  to  his  followers,  is 
supremely  ridiculous.  But,  as  I  intend  to  be  candid  and  fair 
in  this  argument,  I  will  here  say  that  there  has  been  a  time 
in  my  day  when  this  idea  of  example  was  carried  so  far  as  to 
believe  that  Christ's  baptism  by  John  was  an  example  of 
present  intent,  even  to  the  encouragement  of  sinners  to 
submit  to  John's  baptism  unto  repentance,  while  the  truth  in 
the  divine  history  is  that  John  never  baptized  another  subject 
after  he  baptized  Christ.  How  could  he,  when  he  had  seen 
and  believed  that  this  illustrious  personage  was  the  Son  of 
God  ?  (See  John  i.  33,  34.)  He  had  baptized  into  the  faith  of 
one  to  come,  one  of  whom  he  was  only  the  messenger.  (See 


Sermon  on  Gal  UL  26-29.  19 

Malachi  iii.  1.)  He  could  not,  after  this,  call  on  his  disciples 
to  believe  on  one  to  come,  for  he  had  seen  and  believed  that 
the  promised  Messiah  had  already  come,  and  with  this  event 
John's  dispensation  ended.  He  had  no  farther  commission. 
Bat  the  Scriptures  never  leave  us  in  darkness  on  points  mate- 
rial to  truth.  Accordingly,  Luke  tells  us,  chap.  iii.  21,  22, 
"Now when  all  the  people  were  baptized,  (meaning,  of  course, 
all  John  baptized,)  it  came  to  pass,  that  Jesus  also  being  bap- 
tized, and  praying,  the  heaven  was  opened,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
descended  in  bodily  shape  like  a  dove  upon  him,  and  a  voice 
came  from  heaven,  which  said,  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son  ;  in 
thee  I  am  well  pleased."  This  glorious  inauguration  of 
Christ  was  the  displacement  of  John,  with  all  the  functions 
of  his  dispensation.  In  a  word,  his  right  as  a  baptizes*  was 
dependent  on  the  official  relation  in  which  he  stood  to  Christ 
by  divine  appointment.  Hence  he  tells  us,  in  John  i.  31,  that 
it  was  for  the  making  of  Christ  manifest  to  Israel  that  he 
came  baptizing  with  water,  which  really  means  that  the  cere- 
monial consecration  of  Christ  by  water  to  the  office  and  work 
of  his  ministry,  was  the  legal  reason  and  the  necessary  reason 
of  his  baptizing  at  all.  See  the  proof:  To  fulfill  all  righteous- 
ness, even  legal  righteousness,  in  reference  to  a  divinely-con- 
stituted ministry  and  priesthood,  could  not  be  set  aside.  The 
spirit  of  a  divine  order  must  be  maintained.  The  priests  of 
that  valuable  institution,  the  Jewish  Church,  were  washed  with 
water  and  anointed  with  pure  oil,  prefiguring  the  unction  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  These  were  the  types  of  the  high-priest  of 
our  profession,  Christ  Jesus.  Agreeably,  he  was  now  ceremo- 
nially washed  with  water,  according  to  the  divine  order  of 
consecration,  and  anointed  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  All  this  is 
made  clear  by  John's  declaration,  that  he  that  sent  him  had 
told  him  that  on  whomsoever  he  should  see  the  Holy  Ghost 
descend  and  abide  upon  him,  the  same  is  he  which  baptizeth 
with  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  he  saw  and  believed.  All  these 
things  are  written  to  show  us  that  John's  commission  to  bap- 
tize was  to  run  on  until  the  Holy  Ghost  should  come  on  some 
one  baptized  by  him,  and  abide  on  him  as  a  part  of  him,  and 
thus  to  know  him  as  the  Messiah  and  then  to  cease  from  his 


20 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


ministry.  This  lie  most  quietly  did,  for  next  clay  we  find  him 
proclaiming  Christ  as  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world;  and,  turning  over  his  disciples  to  Christ,  he 

decreased. 

My  third  division  on  the  baptismal  question  will  be  the  con- 
sideration of  its  moral  signification.  By  baptismal,  I  mean 
any  sacred  ceremonial  use  of  water  appointed  by  God  as  a 
religious  service.  "The  divers  washings"  mentioned  by 
Mark,  chap,  vii.,  it  is  likely  did  not  fall  within  this  circle,  as 
many  of  them  were  observed  in  obedience  to  the  traditions 
of  the  elders.  "  The  doctrine  of  baptisms  and  of  laying  on  of 
hands,"  mentioned  in  Heb.  vi.  2,  as  some  of  the  principles  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christ,  all  of  which  were  to  be  left  as  children 
leave  the  alphabet  in  their  onward  movement  in  learning, 
must  refer  to  those  introductory  means  of  grace,  including 
some  measures,  only  represented  now,  by  what  Episcopalians 
call  confirmation — a  practice  which,  in  my  opinion,  under  and  in 
a  better  category  of  religious  faith  and  life,  ought  to  have 
been  preserved  in  all  the  Churches  where  infant  baptism  was 
retained  as  a  divine  right.  There  should  be  some  imposing 
ceremony  whereby  these  children  might  be  brought  into  a 
sacred  voluntary  relation  to  the  Church — not  as  a  thing  of 
course  and  of  law,  but  as  a  religious  induction.  As  to  the 
"baptisms"  alluded  to  in  the  quoted  text,  they  were  evidently 
of  Jewish  origin.  And  Jewish  converts,  like  all  other  con- 
verts, might  be  disposed  to  take  up  with  initiatory  rites  and 
parade  these  mere  elementary  principles  of  religion  in  place 
of  a  religious  life — the  very  thing  that  all  formalists  do. 
To  prevent  this,  and  in  remedy  of  its  evil  effects,  every 
Church-member  is  directed  under  divine  command  to  con- 
sider all  these  first-principle  elements  in  a  legitimate  Church- 
membership  as  having  done  all  they  were  retained  to  do,  and 
the  religious  novitiate  must  leave  them  behind.  It  will  not 
do  for  a  Church-member  to  take  along  with  him  any  of  these 
introductory  formalities  as  a  part  of  his  religious  furniture; 
for  if  he  does,  he  cannot  go  on  to  perfection.  The  condition 
of  gaining  perfection  is  leaving  the  first  principles  of  religion, 
with  merely  introductory  forms,  as  dead  letters.    This  is  what 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


21 


no  immersionist  who  rests  for  divine  acceptance  on  immersion 
can  do.  He  cannot  leave  it  behind  or  out  of  his  fair  relation 
to  God,  so  long  as  he  believes  his  immersion  to  be  viewed 
by  the  Almighty  as  he  views  it  himself.  And  the  very 
moment  he  allows  that  God  may  not  look  upon  it  as  he  docs, 
it  becomes  a  mere  circumstance.    It  is  nothing. 

But  the  point  in  the  argument  is  this :  if  the  latitude  St. 
Paul  allows  himself  here,  as  authorized  by  any  original  word 
from  which  we  derive  our  baptism  idea,  justifies  the  plural 
word  "baptisms"  then,  to  my  mind,  it  is  exceedingly  strange 
that  so  many  wise  and  good  men  constantly  affirm  that  "dip 
or  immerse"  is  the  only  idea  that  can  be  legitimately  derived 
from  the  original.  If  this  be  true,  Paul  could  not  have  used 
the  word  baptisms  in  his  sense  of  the  thing ;  for  if  nothing 
but  dip  or  immerse  can  be  contained  in  the  original,  then 
indeed  would  baptism  be  a  mode  of  action  having  no  plural 
form,  and  an  apostle  would  not  have  used  a  term  so  utterly 
senseless.  The  conclusion,  therefore,  is  that  there  was  more 
than  one  mode  of  using  water  as  a  religious  rite  which  carried 
along  with  it  the  idea  of  baptism.  What,  then,  was  the 
moral  signification  of  all  these  rites  ?  It  was  moral  purity, 
and  purity  is  a  state  that  is  secured  by  purification.  The 
water-pots  filled  with  water  at  the  marriagp  in  Cana  of  Gal- 
ilee, were  after  the  manner  of  the  purifying  of  the  Jews. 
This  allusion  is  evidently  to  some  of  the  religious  rites  which 
they  used  as  emblematic  of  moral  purity,  and  to  which  I 
believe  St.  Paul  alludes  when  he  speaks  of  the  doctrine  of 
baptisms.  The  word  doctrine  is  never  used  in  a  religious  sense 
only  when  it  refers  to  something  to  be  believed,  or  to  some 
rule  of  life.  Now,  in  going  on  to  perfection,  all  these  outward 
forms  of  a  religious  life  had  to  be  discounted  down  to  nothing. 
The  two  material  agents  which  could  be  recognized  as  puri- 
fiers, in  the  figurative  view  of  baptism,  were  water  and  fire. 
Hence  when  all  men  were  musing  whether  John  was  the 
Christ  or  not,  John  answered  them,  saying:  " I  indeed  bap- 
tize with  water,  but  there  cometh  after  me  one  mightier 
than  I,  he  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  fire." 
Now,  then,  if  what  Jesus  does  for  his  disciples,  "in  the  wash- 


22 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


ing  of  regeneration  and  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  is 
properly  called  baptism,  (and  who  doubts  it?)  then  immersion 
is  not  the  divine  idea  of  baptism,  for  in  this  affusion  of  the 
Spirit  it  was  not  even  a  possibility.  This  baptism  of  fire  was 
no  doubt  alluded  to  in  Malachi,  3d  chap.,  where  Christ  is 
called  the  messenger  of  the  covenant,  whose  coming  was  to 
inaugurate  a  stricter  economy  of  spiritual  discipline.  John 
gives  the  same  account  of  him  in  Matt.  lii.  11,  12,  where,  in 
addition  to  his  baptism  of  fire,  he  sets  him  forth  with  his  fan 
in  his  hand  to  thoroughly  purge  his  floor — that  is,  his  Church. 
Purity  by  purification  is  everywhere  kept  up  as  the  end 
aimed  at  in  all  Christ's  offices.  As  a  Saviour,  he  is  like  a 
"  refiner's  fire  and  like  fullers'  soap,"  "and  he  shall  sit  as  a 
refiner  and  purifier  of  silver,  and  he  shall  purify  the  sons  of 
Levi  and  purge  them  as  gold  and  silver,  that  they  may  offer 
unto  the  Lord  an  offering:  in  righteousness."  Thus  we  see 
that  while  water  may  cleanse  or  purify  the  flesh  or  clothing 
from  accidental  .impurity,  it  requires  fire  to  purify  metals  from 
their  native  dross.  Hence,  in  John's  prophetic  announce- 
ment of  Christ  as  a  baptizer,  he  exalts  him  above  himself  and 
all  others  who  baptized  with  water,  showing  that,  while  none 
of  them  could  go  any  farther  in  baptizing  than  the  sacra- 
mental sign  of  moral  purity,  Christ  could  and  would  effectu- 
ate moral  purity  itself  by  a  baptism  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
with  fire.  And  let  it  be  especially  remembered  that  it  is 
within  both  agencies,  and  not  in  either.  But  purity,  as  the 
idea  and  end  of  baptism,  is  all  the  time  its  evident  teaching. 
The  periodic  culmination  of  this  descriptive  prophecy  of  Mal- 
achi, and  its  application  to  Christ,  took  place  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  was  poured  out  upon  the  wait- 
ing disciples,  and  sat  upon  their  heads  in  the  likeness  of  cloven 
tongues  of  fire.  This  was  a  baptism  with  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  with  fire.  But  this  purification  idea,  as  signified  in  these 
ceremonial  baptisms,  is  farther  alluded  to  by  Paul  in  Heb.  x. 
22,  where  we  are  invited  to  come  to  Jesus,  having  our  hearts 
sprinkled  from  an  evil  conscience,  and  our  bodies  washed 
with  pure  water.  Here  nothing  is  meant  but  the  moral 
purity  signified  by  these  sacred  ceremonies.     The  thing 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


23 


signified  in  their  use  constituted  their  whole  divine  value. 
In  themselves  they  had  none. 

We  come  finally  to  consider  this  idea  as  we  find  it  in  Christ's 
washing  the  disciples'  feet.  This  remarkable  transaction  has 
no  doubt  arrested  the  attention  of  every  thoughtful  reader. 
It  was  sudden,  and  without  precedent.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the 
Master's  act  was  concerned,  it  was  doubtless  unprecedented. 
Hence  Christ,  in  his  inculcation  of  the  spirit  of  this  service  on 
his  disciples,  said,  "If  I  then,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have 
washed  your  feet,  ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet, 
for  I  have  given  you  an  example  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have 
done  to  you."  Not  wash  each  other's  feet  as  a  religious  ordi- 
nance, but  as  I  have  done — that  is,  in  the  way  of  condescend- 
ing to  men  of  low  estate.  Lowliness,  in  the  sense  in  which 
Christ  exemplified  it,  is  divine  greatness.  We  must  never  be 
above  any  office  of  kindness  which  brotherly  love  may  sug- 
gest as  needful.  But  there  is  some  ground  to  believe  that 
this  example  did  lead  to  some  practice  in  the  Apostolic  Church 
which  was  reckoned  as  a  Christian  duty ;  otherwise  the  apos- 
tle would  hardly  have  said,  in  his  enumeration  of  the  Chris- 
tian virtues,  of  a  widow  about  to  be  received  into  the  class 
of  Church-beneficiaries,  "If  she  have  washed  the  saints' 
feet."  (See  1  Tim.  v.  10.)  It  may  be,  however,  that  this 
washing  of  the  saints'  feet  .may  refer  to  nursings  in  Church- 
infirmaries,  the  very  places  where  such  Christian  widows 
would  most  likely  be  found.  Be  this  as  it  may,  one  thing  is 
certain,  for  Christ  so  explained  himself:  the  washing  was 
designed  as  a  significant  emblem  of  moral  purity,  Christ 
knowing  what  would  grow  out  of  it.  After  supper,  without 
hint  of  his  purpose,  he  made  ready  and  began  to  wash  the 
disciples'  feet.  When  he  came  to  Peter,  "Peter  saith  unto 
him,  Lord,  dost  thou  wash  my  feet  ?  Jesus  answered  and  said 
unto  him,  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt 
know  hereafter  " — alluding,  no  doubt,  to  the  fearful  disclosure 
of  the  treachery  of  Judas.  Hence  he  made  the  predicate  of 
this  act  impurity,  in  the  college  of  disciples.  In  reply  to 
Peter's  modest  objection,  Christ  said,  "If  I  wash  thee  not, 
thou  hast  no  part  in  me"  —  urging  the  present  necessity  in 


24 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


favor  of  the  general  issue,  that  none  but  Christ  can  cleanse 
and  keep  us  clean.  Whereupon  Peter  cried  out  and  said, 
Wash  me,  but  not  my  feet  alone — my  hands  and  my  head." 
To  this  prayer  of  the  agitated  disciple,  Christ  replied,  "  He 
that  is  washed  needeth  not  save  to  wash  his  feet,  but  is  clean 
every  whit;  and  ye  are  clean,  but  not  all.  For  he  knew  who 
should  betray  him;  therefore  said  he,  Ye  are  not  all  clean" 
— alluding  to  them  especially  as  a  body.  (See  John  xiii.  10, 
11.)  Resuming,  after  a  practical  episode,  the  character  and 
conduct  of  Judas  Iscariot,  as  in  verse  18th,  he  declared 
that  in  this  the  prophetic  scriptures  were  fulfilled,  because 
Judas,  who  had  eaten  bread  with  him  even  sacramentally,  had 
lifted  up  his  heel  against  him.  Much  of  this  transaction,  if 
not  all  of  it,  was  in  the  way  of  a  significant  ceremonial  to 
assure  his  disciples  of  his  divine  prescience  of  this  fearful 
defection,  and  that  absolute  uprightness  in  them  was  the  ulti- 
mate design  of  his  washing  their  feet.  The  grand  reason  of 
his  officiating  himself,  was  conveyed  in  his  words  to  Peter : 
"If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast  no  part  in  me."  I  must  do  it 
myself. 

This  feet-washing  was  a  sign  of  the  inward  purity  demanded 
of  them — his  disciples.  Spiritual  cleanness  was  the  moral 
meaning  of  the  ceremony.  Satan  had  entered  into  the  heart 
of  Judas  ;  his  treachery  had  been  detected  and  disclosed ;  he 
stood  forth  identified  as  a  traitor  in  the  family  of  Christ.  And 
as  human  nature  always  does  when  its  darkest  secrets  are 
penetrated,  he  determined  to  revenge  himself  by  the  prompt 
betrayal  of  his  Master.  He  proceeded  to  consummate  his  fell 
purpose,  not  by  offering  to  turn  State' s-evidence,  for  he  had 
no  ground  to  stand  upon  but  by  sale.  The  Jews  did  not  pro- 
pose to  bribe  Judas,  but  he  went  and  offered  to  betray  Christ 
for  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  (In  a  brief  digression  from  my  main 
point,  I  beg  to  say,  that  the  many  scriptures  in  the  Psalms  and 
in  the  prophets  fulfilled — literally  fulfilled — ought  to  satisfy 
every  man  that  the  Scriptures  came  not  in  old  time  by  the 
will  of  man,  but  that  holy  men  wrote  them  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.)  With  this  unclean  spirit  among  them, 
and  knowing  the  sore  trial  of  faith  which  awaited  them,  Christ, 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


25 


in  this  emblematic  act  of  cleansing,  designed  to  impress  the 
necessity  of  personal  integrity,  especially  the  idea  of  spiritual 
purity.  Judas,  by  indulging  his  inward  evil  emotions  and  appe- 
tites, had  become  morally  denied.  To  this  the  Master  alluded 
in  a  most  telling  manner,  when,  in  his  final  answer  to  Peter's 
refusal  and  to  Peter's  enlarged  request,  he  said,  "  He  that  is 
washed  needeth  not  save  to  wash  his  feet,  but  is  clean  every 
whit,  and  ye  are  clean,  but  not  all."  These  words  refer  to 
the  disciples  as  a  body,  and  as  a  body  they  were  clean,  with 
one  exception.  The  washing  being  applied  to  the  feet,  became 
doubly  impressive,  because  it  taught  at  once  a  lesson  of  spir- 
itual cleanness  and  of  Christian  lowliness  of  mind.  In  this 
last  sense,  the  Master  set  his  disciples  an  example,  that  they 
should  not  get  above  one  another.  It  was,  however,  an  exam- 
ple of  lowliness,  not  an  ordinance  for  feet-washing.  But  it  is 
as  a  baptismal  emblem  of  spiritual  cleanness  that  we  are 
bound  to  consider  it  in  the  course  of  this  argument.  The  Bible- 
word  "clean"  has  lost  its  divine  meaning  in  our  familiar  use 
of  it.  It  is  the  synonym  of  purity — heart -purity.  David 
prayed  for  the  creation  of  a  clean  heart  within  him.  He  said, 
u  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  clean,  enduring  for  ever."  And  Christ 
said  to  his  disciples,  "Now  ye  are  clean  through  the  word 
which  I  have  spoken  unto  you."  When  Christ  said,  "  He  that 
is  washed  needeth  not  save  to  wash  his  feet,  but  is  clean  every 
whit,"  his  meaning  is,  that  in  an  emblematical  use  of  water 
as  the  sign  of  spiritual  cleansing,  the  partial  application  of  it 
is  as  significant  as  the  total  application  could  be.  It  is  there- 
fore needless  to  wash  your  hands  and  your  head :  you  need 
nothing  in  this  instance,  and  for  my  purpose,  "  save  to  wash 
your  feet."  The  philosophy  of  all  this  is,  there  is  no  efficacy  in 
the  sign,  but  the  value  is  in  the  thing  signified.  It  is  therefore 
a  question  even  of  orthodox  importance,  whether,  in  perform- 
ing baptism,  it  is  not  safer  to  teach  all  the  subjects  of  it  that 
as  baptism  cannot  be  more  than  an  outward  sign  of  an  inward 
grace,  or  at  best  a  seal  of  the  righteousness  of  faith  which  is 
independent  of  all  reckoned  value  in  outward  forms,  it  is 
better  to  use  only  as  much  water  as  is  indispensable  to  the 
sign.    Let  me  illustrate  my  position  by  the  following  suppos- 


26 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


able  case :  A  candidate  for  baptism  comes  to  me,  and  I  pour 
water  into  a  basin,  and  make  ready,  if  you  please,  to  wash  or 
baptize*  his  forehead  or  face.  But  he  says,  "ISTot  my  face 
alone,  but  my  whole  body."  But  I,  knowing  my  object  bet- 
ter than  he  does,  say  to  him,  He  that  is  washed,  or  baptized, 
needeth  not  save  to  wash,  or  baptize,  his  face,  but  is  clean 
every  whit — that  is,  has  received  all  the  benefit  that  an  out- 
ward sign  can  impart,  which  is  to  recognize  and  teach  an 
inward  grace,  both  as  to  its  necessity  and  value,  and  that  this 
is  obtained  only  "by  the  washing  of  regeneration,"  or  being 
cleansed  from  all  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit.  But  he 
insists  his  whole  body  must  be  washed,  or  baptized.  To  this 
I  object,  and  say,  I  do  not  refuse  to  immerse  you  because 
immersion  cannot  be  reduced  to  my  conception  of  baptism, 
for  I  think  it  can  ;  but  I  do  and  will  object,  until  I  am  satisfied 
that  your  reason  for  preferring  immersion  is  free  from  heresy. 
Why  do  you  wish  to  be  immersed  ?  Are  you  sure  that  it  is  not 
the  mere  abundance  of  water  that  allures  your  faith  ?  Allow 
me  to  ask  you,  if  you  would  as  soon  rely  on  a  gill  of  water  in 
baptism  as  on  an  ocean  of  it,  in  as  far  as  the  water  ceremo- 
nially used  in  baptism  can  be  trusted  in  anyhow?  If  you 
would  not,  my  dear  sir,  however  unwittingly  on  your  part  it 
may  be  done,  still  it  is  unmistakably  true  that  you  believe 
there  is  efficacy  in  the  mode  of  baptism,  and  I  cannot  indorse 
any  theory  of  baptism  that  leans  on  manner  for  acceptance 
with  God.  That  saying  of  Christ,  "  The  flesh  profiteth  noth- 
ing," covers  the  whole  ground.  Christ  cannot  put  essential 
value  into  an  outward  form,  without  deducting  it  from  him- 
self. If  immersion  is  invested  with  any  such  importance  as 
exclusive  immersionists  claim  for  it,  then,  unpleasant  as  the 
conclusion  is,  I  can  see  no  other  reason  for  your  insisting  on 
immersion,  only  that  Christ  has  by  decree  spliced  himself  with 
immersion  so  as  to  be  incompetent  to  organize  a  finished 
Church  on  earth  without  it.  This  I  do  not  believe,  and  I 
must  hold  your  application  in  abeyance  until  you  can  assure 
me  that  you  have  no  faith  in  your  mode  of  baptism  as  mode, 
and  that  you  believe  God  would  as  graciously  receive  you  into 
his  favor,  as  a  believer  in  Christ,  after  baptism  by  pouring  as 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


27 


after  baptism  by  immersion.  Take  time  to  weigh  my  reason- 
ing well.  It  is  a  great  misfortune,  my  brother,  to  enter  into 
religious  relations  estimating  your  price  in  the  sight  of  God 
on  protested  paper.  This  applicant  thinks  we  ask  too  much 
when  we  demand  of  him  to  renounce  all  confidence  in  his 
immersion  idea  as  of  essential  worth  in  his  Christian  record. 
He  will  not  say  that  immersion  is  essential  to  salvation,  but 
he  does  say  that  obedience  is  essential ;  and  as,  in  his  theory, 
believers  are  commanded  to  be  baptized,  and  nothing  but 
immersion  is  baptism,  in  order  to  fulfill  the  law  of  obedience 
he  must  be  immersed.  This,  then,  is  the  logic  of  his  faith. 
Christ  did  not  make  immersion,  as  a  mode  of  baptism,  essen- 
tial to  salvation,  but  he  did  make  obedience  to  his  commands 
essential,  and  therefore  he  commanded  his  believing  children 
to  be  immersed  by  commanding  them  to  be  baptized.  This  is 
the  lamest  argument — the  veriest  dodge — ever  invented  by  a 
hard-pressed  reasoner.  If  it  was  the  best  I  could  do  in  defense 
of  my  faith,  I  would  surrender  it. 

"We  come  next  to  consider  those  passages  of  Scripture  which, 
by  a  very  rude  interpretation,  might  seem  to  favor  the  notion 
of  coeffect  along  with  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  regeneration  of 
the  human  soul.  "We  notice,  first,  our  Lord's  words  to  Nico- 
demus,  (John  iii.  5,)  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  nnto  thee,  except 
a  man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God."  This  text  does  not  mean  that 
water-baptism,  whether  considered  as  sacramental  or  as  a 
divine  ceremonial,  has  any  thing  to  do  with  the  being  born  of 
God.  Nothing  outward,  as  an  efficient  agent  in  the  new 
birth,  is  anywhere  intimated  in  the  Bible.  Those  persons 
who  quote  the  above  text  in  support  of  baptismal  regenera- 
tion, or  of  regeneration  as  coincident  with  baptism,  confirm 
me  in  the  opinion  that,  in  relation  to  certain  doctrinal  dog- 
mas, there  is  a  good  deal  of  religious  lunacy — not  mere  obsti- 
nacy, but  absolute  lunacy.  The  more  absurd  the  opinion,  the 
more  intensely  do  they  cling  to  it.  These  compound  texts 
are  easily  adjusted  to  the  specified  economy  of  grace,  if  left 
just  as  found.  They  simply  set  forth  what  is  required  liter- 
ally in  Christian  life,  and  what  is  indispensable  as  a  prere- 


28 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


quisite  to  entering  into  the  kingdom.  Now,  then,  baptism  is 
appointed— is  a  divine  institution.  Eegeneration  is  a  decree 
— an  absolute  necessity.  God  himself  cannot  get  on  without 
it,  sustain  moral  government,  and  save  sinners.  Hence,  in 
verses  3  and  7,  Christ  expressly  taught  the  necessity  of  the 
new  birth  without  the  remotest  allusion  to  baptism  as  con- 
joined with  the  Spirit  in  the  work  of  regeneration.  Indeed, 
Christ  not  only  declares  the  necessity  of  the  new  birth,  but 
explains  its  nature :  "  That  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit,  is 
Spirit" — or  spiritual.  There  is  no  divinity  in  baptism,  and  it 
has  neither  spiritual  life  or  power  to  impart  ;  and  can  have 
none,  unless  God  could  divide  his  essential  spiritual  person- 
age with  the  water,  so  as  that  neither  might  regenerate  as  a 
separate  agent ;  but  when  acting  together,  might.  Even  this 
view  would  only  minify  the  Spirit  in  order  to  magnify  the 
water.  Who  can  believe  that  God  would  deify  the  water  of 
baptism,  so  as  to  make  its  use  indispensable  to  regeneration  ? 
The  work  is  his,  and  his  glory  he  will  not  give  to  another, 
much  less  to  a  thing.  The  fifth  verse  is  therefore  to  be  regarded 
as  a  mixed  declaration,  in  which  baptism  is  enjoined  as  a  duty 
of  divine  obligation,  while  the  meetness  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  the  result  of  spiritual  regeneration. 

There  can  be  no  fair  exegesis  of  a  text  only,  when  points  of 
doctrine  and  of  faith,  material  to  salvation,  are  left  exactly  as 
settled  in  God's  word.  The  point  we  make  is  settled  thus  : 
"But  to  him  that  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  him  that  jus- 
tifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for  righteousness." 
He  is  treated  by  the  Almighty,  for  Christ's  sake,  as  if  he  were 
righteous.  Upon  the  authority  of  this  text,  I  affirm,  that  if 
any  one  bring  in  his  baptism  on  account  of  its  mode,  or  its 
sacramental  efficacy,  as  a  condition  of  his  regeneration,  he  is 
not  a  scriptural  believer.  It  is  through  the  blood  of  Christ 
alone  that  we  have  "  redemption,  even  the  forgiveness  of 
sins." 

Next,  we  will  consider  those  records  which  refer  to  the  bap- 
tism of  St.  Paul — (Acts  ix.  18,  xxii.  16.)  First,  let  me  say  a 
word  to  those  who  affirm  that  a  certain  Greek  term  means  exactly 
what  they  want  it  to  mean — no  more,  no  less.    Does  not  the 


Sermon  on  Gal  Hi.  26-29.  29 

Greek  word  in  the  first  text  which  refers  to  the  attitude  of 
Paul  in  his  baptism,  justify  me  more  fully  in  saying,  lie  stood 
up  and  was  baptized,  or  even,  Standing  straight  up,  he  was 
baptized,  than  their  hobby-word  for  immersion  justifies  them 
in  their  interpretation  ?  If  it  does,  then  Paul  was  not 
immersed,  and  if  he  was  not  immersed,  immersion  was  not 
an  apostolic  mode  of  baptism.  The  first  text  is  in  Luke's 
narrative  of  Paul's  conversion,  "Arose  and  was  baptized." 
The  second  is,  perhaps,  more  emphatic.  Ananias  said  unto 
Saul,  "And  now,  why  tarriest  thou?  Arise  and  be  baptized, 
and  wash  away  thy  sins,  calling  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord." 
Ananias  had  announced  to  him  his  divine  call  to  the  ministry, 
but  he  must  not  enter  upon  it  without  baptism.  The  Scrip- 
tures never  encourage  us  to  ignore  any  thing  which  belongs 
in  order  to  the  institution  of  the  Church.  Nothing  can  be 
omitted  which  has  been  ordained  in  the  constitution  of 
Christ's  Church,  without  damage  to  the  Church,  and  corrup- 
tion to  the  work  of  faith.  Paul's  miraculous  conversion,  and 
his  hurried  entrance  upon  his  apostolic  ministry,  was  not 
marred  by  any  irregularity.  His  baptism  was  divinely 
ordered.  The  language  employed  in  the  account  by  Luke, 
and  then  by  himself,  indicates  decidedly  that  he  was  baptized, 
then  and  there,  in  the  very  room  where  Ananias  laid  his  hands 
upon  him,  and  said,  "Brother  Saul,  receive  thy  sight."  The 
probabilities  are  all  against  his  immersion.  So  also  of  the 
three  thousand  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  of  Lydia  and  her 
household,  and  of  the  jailer  and  his  house.  But  if  it  is 
allowed  that  any  emergency  could  render  baptism  by  pouring 
valid,  then  immersion  is  not  indispensable  to  baptism.  And  if 
immersion,  by  divine  decree,  is  indispensable,  then  no  exi- 
gence of  necessity  will  justify  another  mode.  That  the  par- 
ties referred  to  were  not  immersed,  is  fairly  inferable  from 
the  natural  simplicity  of  the  narrations.  That  they  were 
immersed,  is  an  improbability — an  arbitrary  assumption — and 
to  affirm  it,  is  a  bold  dogmatic  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of 
natural  interpretation.  However,  it  is  not  my  object  to  argue 
for  or  against  any  mode  of  baptism,  but  to  maintain  that  there 
is  no  saving  efficacy  in  any  mode. 


80 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29, 


If  any  one  demurs,  and  quotes  upon  me  the  words,  "And 
wash  away  thy  sins,  calling  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  I 
will  only  say,  they  were  used  figuratively,  as  I  will  show  from 
another  passage  of  Scripture.  Paul  lays  it  down  as  a  settled 
doctrine  in  the  economy  of  salvation,  that  if  works  have  any 
place,  then  grace  has  none.  Salvation  must,  in  its  causative 
origin,  he  either  all  of  works,  or  else  all  of  grace.  But  sal- 
vation is  "by  grace  through  faith."  This  is  a  specified  fact. 
Now,  baptism  belongs  to  works,  and  cannot  give  out  grace, 
and  cannot,  either  in  part  or  in  whole,  wash  away  sins,  save 
in  a  figurative  sense.  It  is  typical,  and  if  you  make  it  efficient, 
it  ceases  to  be  a  figure,  and  becomes  a  saviour  direct.  Work 
becomes  grace,  which  is  absurd.  I  repeat,  the  whole  religious 
value  of  the  sacraments  is  in  their  signification.  In  this  sense 
Christ  is  to  be  understood  when  he  said,  Except  we  eat  his 
flesh  and  drink  his  blood,  wTe  have  no  life  in  us.  He  only 
meant  our  realization  by  faith  in  him  of  the  thing  signified  in 
the  supper.  If  we  should  rest  our  faith  on  the  sacrament,  we 
fail  to  discern  his  body.  Now,  in  baptism,  the  thing  signified 
is  the  washing  of  regeneration.  If,  therefore,  any  one  should 
look  to  baptism  to  supply  the  grace  it  signifies,  his  faith  is  a 
heresy,  and  his  religion  vain. 

We  come  next  to  speak  of  baptism  as  it  is  coupled  with  the 
salvation  of  Noah  and  his  family  in  the  ark,  by  water.  (See 
1  Peter  iii.  19,  20,  21.)  We  have  to  deal  only  with  the  last 
verse  :  "  The  like  figure  whereunto,  even  baptism  doth  also  now 
save  us,  (not  the  putting  away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the 
answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward  God,)  by  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ."  Now,  leave  out  the  parenthetic  words, 
which  were  evidently  put  in  to  prevent  an  erroneous  construc- 
tion as  to  the  saving  power  of  baptism,  and  then  the  text  will 
read  thus  :  The  like  figure  whereunto,  even  baptism  doth  also 
now  save  us,  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  salvation 
of  Noah  and  his  family  was  by  water,  the  buoyant  power  of 
which  bore  up  the  ark,  and  floated  it  safely  above  the  deluge. 
But  the  salvation  of  water-baptism  is  only  figurative,  not  real, 
as  if  by  water,  because  baptism  derives  its  efficacy  not  from 
the  water,  but  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.    To  this  fact 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


81 


Paul  refers,  as  the  full  and  final  proof  that  Christ  was  God 
manifested  in  the  flesh,  and  the  confirmatory  seal  of  the  atone- 
ment. The  resurrection  assures  our  faith.  Baptism  has  noth- 
ing to  do,  either  by  inherent  or  imparted  virtue,  in  "  the  put- 
ting away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh."  Its  ultimatum,  in  the  way 
of  achievement,  is  "  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward 
God  ; "  and  this  cannot  be  had  only  in  the  acceptance  of  Christ 
as  "the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,"  and  the  sealing  of  this 
faith  by  being  baptized  into  Christ.  It  is  evident  that  the 
importance  of  baptism  is  derived  entirely  from  its  representa- 
tive design.  Hence  John  resolved  all  the  spiritual  essence  of 
it  into  the  baptism  of  the  Church  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
with  fire,  as  the  end  of  prophecy  and  promise.  Indeed,  bap- 
tism, as  a  divine  rite,  was  instituted  to  symbolize  the  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  was  constituted  the  ceremony  by 
which  Church-members  should  take  upon  themselves  all  the 
obligations  of  faith — whereby  we  are  figuratively  saved  by 
water.  It  has  no  agency  in  the  regeneration  of  the  soul,  but 
is  of  value  in  the  gospel  order  of  Church-organization  ;  so 
much  so,  that  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward  God 
cannot  be  had  without  conforming  to  this  order  of  divine 
appointment. 

The  foregoing  arguments  and  illustrations  constitute  a  pro- 
tracted preface  to  the  sermon  preached  in  Frankfort  and  in 
Louisville,  Ky.,  and  at  both  places  was  requested  for  publica- 
tion. For  the  work  of  reproduction  I  have  no  memoranda, 
and  must  rely  upon  the  sameness  of  my  mental  perceptions. 
Those  who  heard  my  extemporaneous  discourses  will  recog- 
nize this  as  a  fair  duplicate,  and  will  see  the  propriety  of  my 
long  exordium. 

The  analysis  of  the  text  is  as  follows :  First,  all  of  God's 
children  are  such  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  No  other  agency 
is  recognized  in  this  endearing  relation. 

Secondly,  these  children  are  all  initiated  into  Christ's  family 
by  baptism.  Let  it  be  noted,  that  their  introduction  into  the 
relation  of  children  of  God  was  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus,  and, 
as  the  terms  in  the  text  imply,  before  their  baptism;  so  that 


32 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


baptism  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  internal  change,  whereby 
they  became  the  children  of  God.  This  was  by  faith  alone. 
As  with  Abraham,  whose  faith  was  counted  to  him  for  right- 
eousness, while  yet  in  uncircumcision,  so  still  God  magnifies 
the  righteousness  of  faith  while  we  are  yet  unbaptized.  Thus 
against  the  vagaries  of  baptismal  regeneration,  or  of  regene- 
ration as  coincident  with  immersion,  as  held  by  Campbellites, 
God  has  sought  to  guard  the  Church.  But  being  by  profes- 
sion baptized  into  Christ,  and  so  visibly  and  practically  put- 
ting on  Christ,  is  in  the  order  of  divine  appointment,  and 
must  not  be  ignored. 

Thirdly,  this  "putting  on  Christ"  refers  especially  to  all 
the  obligations  imposed  on  believers  in  their  baptism.  They 
then  and  there  pledge  themselves  to  the  open  and  unreserved 
dedication  of  their  whole  after-life  to  Christ.  They  promise 
to  imitate  him — going  about  to  do  good  in  spirit,  to  be  meek 
and  lowly,  forgiving  as  Christ  hath  forgiven  them.  They 
engage  to  be  clothed  with  him,  so  as  fully  and  fairly  to  repre- 
sent him.  Pastors  and  Churches  should  see  to  it,  that  no  one 
comes  into  their  communion  unless  in  baptism  he  enters  thus 
fully  into  Christ  Jesus. 

Fourthly,  all  claims  to  preeminence,  founded  on  blood,  or 
condition,  or  sex,  as  to  divine  rights  in  the  way  of  Christian 
authority  or  brotherhood,  is  arrogant  assumption,  because  in 
God's  house,  as  believers,  we  are  all  one  by  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus,  to  set  up  any  claim  of  divine  preference,  irrespective  of 
faith  or  additional  to  it,  is  to  make  a  schism  in  the  body  of 
Christ. 

I  enter  now  upon  the  long-mooted  question  of  Christian 
baptism,  hoping  to  disentangle  it  from  the  errors  which  have 
been  thrown  around  it  either  by  igqorance  or  education.  One 
source  of  error,  perhaps  the  chief  one,  has  been  the  misplace- 
ment of  it  as  to  its  order.  It  has  been  quoted,  preached,  and 
believed  to  be  an  u  ordinance ,"  and  of  course  a  legal  necessity 
in  some  way,  and,  as  a  legal  requisition,  it  was  natural  that 
mode  should  become  the  bone  of  contention.  There  was 
more  of  imposing  show  in  immersion  than  in  any  other  mode, 
and,  besides,  its  over-zealous  advocates  invested  it  with  an 


Sermon  on  Gal.  ML  26-29. 


33 


attractive  glory  by  making  it  an  imaginary  emblem  of  Christ's 
burial  and  resurrection.    So,  also,  by  teaching  the  false  but 
winning  idea  of  Christ's  immersion  in  the  Jordan  as  an 
example  to  be  literally  followed  by  all  his  disciples,  until 
many  of  the  superstitious  minds,  both  of  white  and  colored 
subjects,  came  up  from  immersion  as  well  satisfied  with  their 
act,  because  of  its  exact  filling  of  the  fond  conceit  of  being 
emblematically  buried  and  raised  up  with  Christ,  as  a  fash- 
ionable woman  would  be  with  her  costume  after  ascer- 
taining that  every  plait  and  fold  was  precisely  as  fashion 
ordered  it.    For  many  long  years,  the  most  fearful  apprehen- 
sions have  occupied  my  mind  concerning  a  certain  class  of 
our  common  population  in  reference  to  this  mode  of  baptism — 
not  because  of  the  mode,  but  because  of  its  illusions.    I  have 
been  always  satisfied  that  a  people  as  fond  of  allurement  and 
as  susceptible  of  superstition  as  many  of  this  class  are,  are 
always  in  danger  of  fatal  delusion,  when  attracted  to  immer- 
sion, by  having  paraded  before  them  the  pretension  or  cir- 
cumstance either  of  its  form  or  its  ideas.    Allow  me  to  ask 
the  friends  and  ministers  of  immersion  if  they  have  not  been 
inwardly  premonished  that  many  of  these  illiterate  children 
of  earth  felt,  when  coming  up  out  of  the  water,  a  spirit  of 
self-adulation,  which  said,  "  See  here,  Lord ;  see  I  have  fol- 
lowed thee  in  my  baptism ;  I  have  done  as  thou  hast  com- 
manded me  to  do" — thinking  of  nothing  else  all  the  time  but 
mode.    This  state  of  mind  cannot  be  harmless.    It  contains 
the  leaven  of  Pharisaic  righteousness.    I  do  not  enter  my 
protest  against  immersion  abstractly  considered,  but  against 
it  as  a  legal  ordinance.    But  it  is  upon  this  ground  alone,  as 
I  understand  immersionists,  that  they  hold,  use,  and  preach 
it;  yea,  enforce  it  as  a  divine  command.    They  make  it  a 
sine  qua  non  in  all  the  rights  and  relations  of  Church-mem- 
bership and  of  Christian  communion  and  fellowship.  All 
this,  not  because  baptism  is  a  Christian  rite  not  to  be  ignored, 
but  because  it  is  an  absolute  legal  ordinance  demanding 
immersion  as  the  only  mode  for  which  the  law  of  baptism 
can  discharge  its  subjects  as  obedient  to  the  letter.    There  is 
not  an  immersionist  in  all  the  land,  holding  these  views,  who 
3 


34 


Sermon  on  Gal.  UL  26-29. 


is  not  a  legalist,  as  far  as  baptism  is  concerned,  as  really  as 
any  elder  iu  the  Jewish  Church  was,  when  he  tithed  his  mint 
and  rue  in  honor  of  his  law.  There  is  no  dodging  the  issue. 
If  baptism  is  an  ordinance,  it  is  of  necessity  a  legal  mode ;  if 
a  legal  mode,  no  righteousness  but  legal  righteousness  can  fill 
its  requirements :  faith  has  no  part  in  it.  The  law  is  not  of 
faith.  The  law  inquires  not  what  we  believe,  but  what  we 
do.  Its  economy  is  life,  as  due  to  legal  obedience.  Let 
immersionists  remember  that,  if  they  are  immersed  to  fulfill 
a  legal  mode,  they  cannot  bring  their  baptism  into  the  obedi- 
ence of  faith  at  all ;  they  are  all  baptized  upon  a  law-basis. 
Unless  immersion  is  prescribed  as  a  mode  required  by  law, 
there  is  no  value  in  the  mode.  But  if  immersion,  as  a  mode, 
is  demanded  by  law,  then  every  subject  of  it  is  obliged  to 
claim  the  benefit  of  legal  righteousness,  or  count  his  baptism 
out.    It  cannot  claim  under  grace,  and  yet  rule  as  law. 

Out  of  the  aforesaid  misconception  have  arisen  all  the  com- 
plaints urged  against  the  translators  of  our  present  authorized 
version.  To  remedy  their  supposed  errors,  a  large  and 
respectable  body  among  Protestant  Christians  have  commit- 
ted what  I  regard  the  greatest  blunder  of  their  sect — the 
change  of  the  authorized  version  into  a  denominational  ver- 
sion. Say  what  they  may,  the  verdict  of  all  considerate 
minds  is  that  the  new  version  is  a  sectarian  Bible.  The  old 
version  did  not  teach  immersion  as  an  absolute  requirement, 
but  simply  to  baptize  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  while 
they,  single-handed,  against  all  Protestant  Christendom, 
affirmed  that  baptism  meant  immersion,  and  that  therefore 
there  was  no  baptism  without  immersion.  Assuming  that 
the  translators  were  dishonest  and  sought  to  suppress  the 
truth,  they  determined  to  make  the  Bible  teach  immersion  in 
terms,  by  translating  into  English  the  Greek  word  which 
King  James's  translators  only  transferred,  or,  if  it  is  preferred, 
anglicized.  The  translators  were  right,  because  as  a  ritual 
term  it  could  not  be  translated  without  losing  its  ritual  sense, 
which  was  its  only  original  idea.  There  was  no  term  into 
which  it  could  have  been  translated  without  changing  it  into 
a  legal  ordinance,  the  very  idea  which  the  genius  of  the  gospel 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


85 


was  laboring  to  eliminate.  It  must  have  been  rendered  either 
sprinkle,  or  pour,  or  immerse,  either  of  which,  if  understood 
as  a  prescribed  mode  divinely  appointed  because  divinely  pre- 
ferred, would  involve  the  very  same  difficulty,  namely, 
attaching  religious  value  to  mere  mode.  This  is  utterly 
impossible  with  God,  just  as  much  so  as  giving  value  to  the 
place  where  devotion  is  performed  without  regard  to  the 
animus  or  spirit  of  the  worshiper.  Mode,  as  mode  in  bap- 
tism, must  be  a  matter  of  as  perfect  indifference  with  God  as 
would  have  been  the  question  whether  the  worshiper  was 
in  Jerusalem  or  Samaria,  when  worshiping  God  as  a  Spirit, 
in  spirit  and  truth.  Alas  for  the  Churches  which  look  for 
divine  acceptance  on  the  vain  conceit  of  God's  love  of  forms, 
as  forms  !  It  is  true  in  all  cases,  that  the  letter  kills  while  the 
spirit  alone  gives  life.  If  baptism  were  shut  up  to  actual 
modality,  in  any  one  of  the  three  modes  of  administering  it, 
in  spite  of  all  warning,  the  ordained  mode  would  become  the 
ideal  of  acceptable  service.  Indeed,  the  idea  of  God's  esti- 
mating mode  in  baptism  high  enough  to  secure  it  by  an  ordi- 
nance, would  excuse  the  most  extravagant  devotion  to  it. 
And  this  would  be  a  provision  for  spiritual  idolatry. 

I  take  the  ground  openly  that  baptism  is  not  an  ordinance, 
but  a  rite,  and  that  it  cannot  be  both.  If  it  is  an  ordinance, 
it  is  not  a  rite  ;  if  it  is  a  rite,  it  is  not  an  ordinance.  The  two 
things  cannot  be  the  same  thing.  An  ordinance  is  a  rule  of 
action,  authoritatively  prescribed.  A  rile  is  a  religious  service, 
ceremonially  performed.  Baptism,  in  every  common-sense 
view  of  it,  partakes  only  of  this  quality.  How  unmeaning  it 
would  all  be  if,  when  a  convert  is  about  to  be  baptized,  we 
lose  sight  of  its  gracious  signification  in  the  barren  conceit  of 
a  legal  exaction!  Bat  let  baptism  be  confined  to  a  law  of 
definite  modality,  and  this  issue  is  inevitable.  I  am  not  piling 
up  arguments  against  immersion.  Sprinkling  water  with 
hyssop,  or  pouring  it  out  of  a  silver  cup,  if  done  as  immer- 
sion is  claimed  to  be  done,  in  answer  to  a  specific  law  of 
mode,  would  be  as  utterly  graceless  and  as  entirely  legal  in 
one  way  as  in  the  other.  I  am  contending  against  all  modes 
as  containing  any  religious  value  on  account  of  form,  and  if 


36 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


an  immersionist  will  grant  this  point,  his  preference  of  immer- 
sion will  be  extinguished. 

False  premises  always  lead  to  false  and  uafair  conclusions. 
So  in  this  case :  immersionists,  starting  from  a  wrong  stand- 
point, have  very  naturally  run  into  wrong  views  concerning 
Christian  communion.  They  assume,  on  the  ground  of  their 
faith  in  immersion  as  a  divine  ordinance,  that  this  mode  of 
baptism  can  alone  legitimize  Church  -  membership.  In  a 
word,  they  believe  there  is  no  regular  Gospel  Church  but 
their  own ;  hence  they  maintain  close  communion.  Let  me 
kindly  inquire  of  these  brethren  whether  they  do  really 
believe  what  they  practically  assert,  namely,  that  Christ  does 
not  and  cannot  have  upon  the  earth  a  people  scripturally 
worthy  to  u  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his  blood"  sacramentally, 
unless  they  receive  their  fitness  through  immersion?  If  so, 
do  they  not  perceive  that  in  this  ordinance  Christ  has  so  dis- 
abled himself  as  to  make  him  dependent  on  this  contingency 
for  a  sacramental  membership  in  his  mystical  body?  And 
does  not  such  a  conclusion  startle  men  and  angels  ?  But  if 
immersionists  admit  that  Christ  can  have  children  by  faith  in 
him  worthy  to.  partake  of  his  body  and  blood,  without  immer- 
sion, then  immersion,  as  a  mode,  is  null  and  void.  Baptism, 
as  a  simple  Christian  ritual,  remains  intact.  My  readers  must 
not  forget  my  position,  that  baptism  is  not  an  ordinance  set 
to  guard  a  mode,  but  is  a  divine  rite,  by  which  we  attest  our 
faith  in  Christ — a  religious  service  ceremonially  performed 
with  water  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost.  I  prefer  sprinkling  or  pouring;  but  any  mode,  rightly 
performed  and  rightly  received,  meets  the  design  and  fulfills 
the  end  of  the  rite.  Here  let  me  say,  I  seriously  doubt 
whether  any  one,  resolving  baptism  into  a  legal  mode,  can  be 
consistently  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  If 
baptism  is  received  upon  a  law-basis  at  all,  it  can  only  claim 
upon  the  ground  of  legal  obedience;  for  the  law  is  not  of 
faith.  Baptism,  as  a  simple  Christian  ritual  alone,  can  be 
done  in  the  names  of  the  ever-glorious  Godhead.  It  is  herein 
and  hereby  that  as  many  believers  as  are  baptized,  are  bap- 
tized into  Christ  and  put  on  Christ. 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


37 


The  defenders  of  this  venerable  dogma — ordained  immersion 
— surely  never  thought  how  nearly  they  approach  the  mael- 
strom of  justification  by  baptism,  and  that  defection  from  Christ 
into  which  the  Galatian  Church  was  falling  by  an  over-appre- 
ciation of  circumcision.  Thus,  revolting  from  the  economy 
of  justification  by  faith  alone,  they  unwittingly  look  for  justi- 
fication by  works,  and,  as  a  sequence,  must  fall  from  grace. 
To  one  of  my  esteemed  brethren,  a  Baptist  minister  of  high 
grade,  an  inquirer  said,  "Do  you  believe  baptism  essential  to 
salvation?"  He  answered,  "No;  but  obedience  is,  and  we 
are  commanded  to  be  baptized" — that  is,  immersed,  as  he  held 
immersion  alone  to  be  baptism.  Now  see  his  reasoning, 
stripped  of  its  specious  drapery :  immersion  is  not  essential  to 
salvation,  but  obedience  is,  and  the  law  of  obedience  cannot 
be  fulfilled  without  being  immersed.  But  for  the  grace  of 
charity,  I  would  pronounce  this  answer  disingenuous.  Yet 
he  was  a  good  man,  and  his  difficulty  was  that,  after  all  he 
had  said  about  the  divine  ordinance  of  baptism,  and  its  divine 
rank  in  the  line  of  Christian  service,  it  was  the  best  he  could 
do,  without  openly  maintaining  a  downright  heresy.  It  is  a 
safe  maxim  that  "what  is  overdone  is  undone."  Such  is  the 
result  in  this  case.  So  much  is  said  of  and  about  immersion 
as  to  involve  the  question  of  salvation  itself.  To  declare 
immersion  essential  to  salvation,  is  rather  more  than  immer- 
sionists  can  venture ;  but  to  admit  that  God  can  get  along  in 
his  economy  of  salvation,  so  utterly  independent  of  it  as  to 
put  it  where  faith  in  Christ  puts  circumcision,  among  the 
negations,  and  count  it  as  "nothing,"  is  what  no  enthusiastic 
immersionist  will  allow.  If  any  one  doubts  this,  let  him  test 
it.  Herein  lies  the  startling  error  of  Alexander  Campbell, 
the  apostle  of  the  Campbellite  Baptists.  The  overestimated 
value  of  immersion  overspread  the  whole  Baptist  Church. 
They  claimed  for  it  a  divine  affection,  and  unwisely  gave  it  a 
rank  in  the  Church  which  brought  it  right  up  alongside  of 
Campbell's  exaggerated  idea.  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  the 
Campbellite  error  would  never  have  been  born  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  overestimated  importance  of  immersion ;  and 
this  importance  would  never  have  been  dreamed  of,  if  it  had 


38 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


not  been  for  the  false  conception  that  baptism  was  a  modal 
ordinance  instead  of  a  simple  Christian  rite.  It  is  impossible 
to  shut  up  the  Deity  to  any  specified  mannerism,  in  the  per- 
formance of  an  outward  religious  act,  without  resolving  relig- 
ion into  the  zealous  observance  of  that  mannerism.  In 
nothing  has  this  truth  been  more  fully  verified  than  in  immer- 
sion. Proofs  multiply  all  the  time,  satisfactory  to  my  mind, 
that  Baptist  preachers  themselves  are  not  aware  how  much  they 
rely  upon  immersion  as  a  ground  of  high  recommendation  to 
the  preference  of  God  for  them  and  their  people  on  this 
account.  Else,  why  such  language  as  this  :  "  I  love  you  as  a 
Christian  brother,  and  it  would  do  me  so  much  good  to  lead 
you  down  into  the  water  and  baptize  you !"  If  God  can  con- 
vert and  sprinkle  me  from  an  evil  conscience  without  immer- 
sion, why  be  troubled  about  me?  But  if  he  cannot,  then 
declare  immersion  essential  to  salvation,  and  be  done  with  all 
equivocal  answers. 

My  object  in  this  discourse  is  fairness  and  truth.  I  must, 
therefore,  say  that  the  regular  Baptists,  as  far  as  I  know, 
never  did  believe  either  in  baptismal  regeneration  or  regene- 
ration as  the  coincidence  or  sequence  of  baptism.  It  is,  how- 
ever, needful  to  notice  how  exactly  alike  the  causative  agen- 
cies in  these  errors  are.  The  notion  of  baptismal  regenera- 
tion grew  out  of  the  mythical  idea  of  apostolic  succession. 
The  apostles,  being  the  appointees  of  Christ  and  immediate 
graduates  of  the  Pentecostal  commencement,  wrought  miracles 
in  Christ's  name,  and  were  honored,  during  this  momentous 
period  of  Church-history,  with  being  the  medium  of  convey- 
ing the  Holy  Ghost  by  imposition  of  hands  —  thus  visibly 
setting  forth  the  fact- that  the  Church  was  to  be  established 
and  transmitted  by  authority  of  a  divine  commission,  and  not 
by  a  canon  of  episcopal  lineage.  All  worth  supposed  to  be 
derived  from  "  succession  "  is  mere  arrogance.  Nothing  that 
belongs  to  or  can  enter  into  the  essential  living  elements  of 
an  apostolic  ministry  could,  by  any  possibility,  have  been 
committed  to  the  issue  of  an  uninterrupted  line  of  transmis- 
sion by  imposition  of  hands  from  Peter  or  Paul  down  to  us. 
If  there  cannot  be  as  regular  and  as  divine  a  ministry  raised 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


39 


up  without  this  as  by  it  and  through  it,  then  has  the  great 
Head  of  the  Chureh  deemed  it  safer  to  intrust  the  perpetua- 
tion of  his  ministry  to  the  chances  of  apostolic  succession 
than  to  hold  the  authority  in  his  own  hands ;  it  being  certain 
that  he  did  establish  the  safest  way,  this  alone  being  worthy 
of  his  wisdom  and  goodness.  If,  however,  this  dogma  of 
High-churchism  is  true,  then  Christ,  knowing  the  Church  and 
her  ministry  would  be  safer  in  these  prelatical  hands  than  in 
his  own,  did  divest  himself  of  the  authority  to  perpetuate 
them,  in  order  to  invest  these  successors  with  the  right  and 
power.  If  Christ  did  so  invest  them,  then  their  Church  is 
"the  Church,"  and  if  not,  not. 

This  fond  dream  of  "succession"  very  naturally  gave  birth 
to  another  fancy  no  less  unreal  and  delusive — the  doctrine  of 
priestly  efficacy.  The  idea  is,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  conveyed 
through  this  line  by  material  contact  in  episcopal  ordination, 
and  in  the  sacraments  by  priestly  consecration.  Hence  the 
vain  conceit  of  baptismal  regeneration.  They  could  not  con- 
ceive of  any  regeneration  following  my  baptismal  service,  nor 
doubt  it  in  any  one  of  their  own  priests — even  though  he 
might  have  spent  the  night  before  in  sensuality — because,  as 
he  was  in  the  line,  his  efficacious  touch  must  insure  the  work. 

The  likeness  between  these  High-churchmen  and  exclusive 
immersionists  lies  in  this,  that  both  vaunt  the  principle  of 
successional  prestige.  The  latter  derive  the  antiquity  and  the 
sacred  value  of  immersion  from  John  the  Baptist,  by  assuming 
that  Christ  sanctified  it  in  his  personal  baptism,  perpetuated  it  in 
his  baptismal  commission,  and  carried  it  out  in  the  hands  of  his 
apostles.  That  they  believe  as  absolutely  in  the  virtue  of  suc- 
cessional merit  in  their  way  as  Episcopalians  do  in  theirs,  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  they  do  not  believe  any  one  can  be 
immersed  into  the  Church  according  to  the  will  of  God  unless 
he  is  immersed  by  a  regular  Baptist  minister.  We  Method- 
ists immerse  a  good  many,  but  they  are  excluded  from  a  Bap- 
tist communion  as  rigidly  as  the  rest  of  us.  This  proves  that 
they  do  not  believe  in  immersion  simply  because  it  is  immer- 
sion, but  must  superadd  this  successional  integrity.  The  line 
from  its  origin  must  be  continuous  in  the  hands  of  its  only 


40 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


legitimate  trustees.  Lineage  is  something  as  well  as  mode  ;  if 
not,  my  Baptist  brethren  would  argue  that  immersion  at  my 
hands  would  be  as  divinely  valid  as  at  their  own.  Thus  we 
see  how  exactly  alike  these  dogmatisms  are. 

All  excess  of  value  levied  on  outward  forms  of  religion 
leads  to  the  loss  of  its  spiritual  unity  and  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship. The  worst  feature  after  all,  perhaps,  is  the  fact,  that 
this  assumed  preference  of  God  for  them  over  other  forms  of 
worship,  if  it  does  not  actually  invest  them  with  meritorious 
worth,  certainly  gathers  about  them  such  a  halo  of  interest  as 
to  beguile  unwary  souls,  and  betray  them  into  fatal  heresy. 
It  will  be  seen,  in  a  few  years,  that  ritualistic  fanatics  will  all 
land  in  Romanism  as  their  genial  home,  and  stark-naked  rit- 
ualism will  be  the  bond  of  their  religious  fraternity.  It  was 
under  the  attraction  of  this  social  element,  aggregating  all 
who  were  like-minded,  which  banded  the  Campbellites  into 
an  independent  association  of  Baptists.  Their  views  of  immer- 
sion took  on  a  form  and  style  of  appreciation  which  startled 
the  original  immersionists,  and  led  to  the  necessity  of  organ- 
izing a  new  immersion  sect — both  sects  clinging  to  the  idea  of 
a  divine  preference  of  immersion,  and  believing  in  common 
that  no  Gospel  Church  could  be  created  without  immersion  as 
an  ordinance  of  modal  baptism — esteeming  obedience  essen- 
tial to  salvation,  and  immersion  demanded  by  obedience. 
This  view  of  baptism  has  made  it  no  marvel  to  me  that  a 
man  as  enthusiastic  in  his  temperament,  and  as  visionary  in 
his  zeal,  as  Mr.  Campbell  evidently  was,  should  have  fallen 
into  his  unfortunate  heresy.  What  was  his  theory  ?  Was  it 
not  this  ? — that  there  was  no  outward  separate  Spirit  working 
regeneration  in  us  by  spiritual  power  or  influence,  independent 
of  all  outward  agencies,  but  that  the  Spirit  was  contained  in 
the  letter,  and  that  his  efficiency  in  saving  us  turned  upon  our 
obedience  to  the  letter  of  God's  word,  affirming,  at  the  same 
time,  that  we  are  commanded  to  be  baptized  as  the  initial 
step  in  religion,  (which  is  to  be  understood  always  as  only  a 
command  to  be  immersed,)  and  as  a  sequence  of  immersion, 
when  all  is  obediently  submitted  to,  regeneration  takes  place 
— not  as  the  effect  of  spiritual  agency,  but  as  an  accompani- 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi  26-29. 


41 


ment  of  baptism,  which  is  immersion — the  Spirit  lying  dor- 
mant in  the  letter,  like  the  germ  of  life  in  a  grain  of  corn, 
until  it  is  evoked  from  its  inactive  state  by  outward  appli- 
ances. But  let  it  be  always  kept  before  the  mind  that  the 
Spirit  never  responds  with  this  rich  reward  only  in  immer- 
sion, and  that  therefore  its  response  is  the  evidence  of  God's 
high  regard  for  immersion,  for  the  ground  of  this  approval  is 
the  merit  of  mode  on  its  own  account.  I  defy  any  man  to 
justify  Mr.  Campbell's  scheme. 

There  is  no  sense  in  which  baptism  can  minister  any  aid  in 
the  act  of  regeneration,  unless  it  be  by  the  merit  of  works. 
The  doctrine  is,  therefore,  the  doctrine  of  meritorious  work. 
There  is  no  conceivable  way  in  which  submission  to  the  com- 
mand to  be  baptized  can  facilitate  regeneration,  except  on  the 
ground  of  legal  obedience,  and  on  this  because  of  the  merit 
of  such  obedience.  There  is  no  pardon,  no  regeneration,  of 
sinful  souls  on  account  of  merited  mercy.  The  scriptures  of 
the  New  Testament  have  been  special  and  definite  in  their 
denial  of  merit  to  works,  stating,  in  most  express  terms,  that 
salvation  is  by  grace  through  faith,  and  not  at  all  of  works. 
If  the  Campbellites  believe  at  all  that  we  are  justified  by  faith, 
their  faith  must  be  in  the  merit  of  baptism  as  a  deed  of  relig- 
ious service,  else  their  justification  cannot  be  by  faith  at  all, 
for  faith  must  rest  on  the  ground  of  merit.  But  the  claim  of 
true  faith  rests  upon  merit  outside  of  any  personal  deeds. 
While  merited  mercy  rests  upon  equitable  deserts,  I  can 
hardly  believe  that  they  would  assume  that  the  merit  of 
immersion  is  so  great  as  to  substitute  the  merit  of  Christ  by 
its  sufficiency.  If  it  is  not  sufficient  of  itself,  it  cannot  even 
supplement  it.  Either  it  is  sufficient  to  carry  the  cause  on 
its  own  account,  or  it  is  insufficient  to  carry  on  part  of  it; 
and  the  teachers  of  its  sufficiency  are  false  teachers,  and  the 
converts  to  it  are  deluded  heretics. 

St.  Paul  says  that  in  Christ  dwells  the  fullness  of  the  God- 
head bodily,  and  that  believers  are  complete  in  him — the  pos- 
session of  Christ  is  the  complement  of  religion.  This  cannot 
be  true  if  any  thing,  besides  simple  faith  in  him  is  a  divine 
necessity.    Now,  if  immersion  is  a  condition  of  regeneration 


42 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


or  of  Christian  unity,  then  we  are  not  complete  in  him  on  his 
own  account,  but  by  reason  of  an  outward  observance  made 
indispensable  by  his  own  ordination.  Whatever  is  made 
indispensable  to  completenesss  in  Christ,  by  his  ordination  of 
it  to  that  end,  must  be  as  much  an  object  of  faith  as  he  is  him- 
self. Admit  this  as  true,  and  then  it  is  not  true  that  believ- 
ers are  justified  by  faith  alone  without  the  deeds  of  the 
law — because  the  scheme  itself  makes  a  deed  of  the  law  neces- 
sary to  our  justification.  In  this  dilemma  all  exclusive  immer- 
sionists  are  involved.  Among  the  regular  Baptists  it  is  an 
embarrassing  error,  leading  them  to  do  things  from  which 
their  Christian  sympathies  revolt.  This  sympathy  itself  is 
proof  that  the  simple  law  of  brotherly  love  is  improperly  vio- 
lated. Among  the  Campbellites  it  is  a  specious  heresy, 
prompting  them  to  pledge  regeneration  to  sinners,  in  whom 
there  is  neither  a  broken  heart  nor  a  contrite  spirit  as  manifest 
signs  of  evangelical  repentance,  if  they  will  submit  to  immer- 
sion as  its  unfailing  condition. 

This  error  is  the  more  glaring  in  its  folly,  from  the  fact  that 
no  one  ever  operates  regeneration  with  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's-supper.  It  seems  to  me,  if  regeneration  could  have 
been  made  the  sequence  of  either,  this  sacrament  ought  to 
have  had  the  preference,  because  it  is  the  communion  of  the 
body  and  blood  of  Jesus,  and  more  is  said  of  its  sacred  impor- 
tance than  of  the  importance  of  baptism.  This  fact  bears 
equally  hard  upon  both  divisions  of  the  Baptists,  as  they  both 
hold  that  immersion  alone  is  baptism.  And  it  is  not  to  bap- 
tism as  a  sacrament — the  sealing  rite  of  faith  in  Christ — that 
either  party  clings  with  such  pertinacious  obstinacy,  but  to 
immersion  as  an  ordained  mode — showing  that  their  faith  is 
not  in  it,  as  a  gospel  ritual,  but  as  a  modal  ordinance,  in  which 
God  himself  stickles  for  mode  as  an  exaction  of  formal  obe- 
dience, and  will  accept  of  nothing  else.  Consequently  every 
enthusiastic  immersionist  is  compelled,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, to  glorify  his  literal  obedience.  Herein  is  enveloped 
the  virus  of  Pharisaic  separateness.  This  idea  of  divine  com- 
placency in  outward  excellences  is  not  a  mere  infirmity,  but  a 
Pharisaical  conceit  of  a  better  showing  than  other  professors 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


43 


of  religion.  This  fancy  is  characteristic  of  all  people  who 
become  insane  about  any  outward  form  of  religious  service 
which  is  held  on  to  as  of  divine  origin  and  order,  or  as  dis- 
tinctive of  denominational  glory.  In  this  the  Baptists,  in  my 
opinion,  have  been  very  unfortunate.  The  denominational 
title  seems  as  if  chosen  to  declare  themselves  the  only  bap- 
tizers,  (while  all  others  are  mere  pretenders,)  and  the  keepers 
and  defenders  of  baptism  after  the  Lord's  ideal  of  it.  I  have 
long  been  sorry  at  my  heart  on  account  of  the  idolatrous  hom- 
age paid  to  a  form — a  mere  idea — by  my  Baptist  brethren.  I 
never  hear  them  speak  of  the  number  of  converts  at  any  of 
their  revivals,  but  only  of  the  number  baptized — thus  furnish- 
ing prima  facie  evidence  that  baptism  held  too  high  a  rank  in 
the  scale  of  their  reckoning.  Close  communion  is  another 
proof  of  this  evil.  In  all  their  intercourse,  the  enlightened 
and  liberal-minded  among  them  are  as  cordial  in  their 
brotherly  spirit  as  any  other  Christian  people.  But  when  it 
comes  to  eating  and  drinking  sacramentally  at  the  Lord's 
table,  believers  who  have  not  been  immersed  are  ruled  off 
with  as  much  stiffness  as  any  other  class  of  non-professing 
men.  All  this  is  the  worship  of  their  mode  of  baptism.  This 
is  so  sacred,  in  its  relation  to  Church-existence,  as  to  demand 
for  Christ's  sake  the  excommunication  of  all  invaders  of  the 
true  tabernacle — which  is  now  the  Baptist  Church — because 
immersion  is  the  only  door  of  entrance  into  Christ's  Church, 
and  they  are  its  only  guard.  All  others,  if  they  recognize 
immersion  at  all,  commonize  it.  We  reverence  it  as  an  altar  of 
most  special  sacrifice,  where  God  smells  the  sweetest  odor  of 
Christian  incense.  It  is  the  Holy  of  holies  in  our  Church  ; 
for  while  we  require  a  good  general  Christian  character  as 
requisite  to  Christian  communion,  yet  we  make  immersion,  at 
the  hands  of  an  orderly  Baptist  minister,  the  wedding-garment 
at  our  sacramental  feast.  No  one  can  be  recognized  by  us  as 
a  legitimate  Church-member  but  an  orderly  Baptist.  There 
is  no  door  of  lawful  entrance  into  Christ's  Church  but  immer- 
sion, which  cannot  be  divinely  administered  except  by  a  regular 
Baptist  minister.  At  this  point  I  hear  some  kind-hearted  Bap- 
tist cry. out  and  say,  "Hold  on,  my  dear  old  brother ;  you  over- 


44 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


charge  us  !  My  heart  is  larger  than  this  limit."  This  I  do  not 
deny,  or  doubt,  when  your  hearts  are  natural.  Your  heart  is 
better  than  your  creed.  But  you  are  in  an  iron  cage  as  a  Bap- 
tist, and  until  you  burst  its  rigid  ribs  by  the  overflowings  of  a 
Christian  charity  too  strong  for  these  iron-clad  notions,  you 
must  fight  off  your  Christian  sympathies  as  at  war  with  the 
sacramental  efficacy  of  immersion.  We  all  baptize  with  water 
in  the  name  of  the  triune  God.  But  you  say  ours  is  no  bap- 
tism— immersion  alone  is  baptism.  Now,  if  this  be  so,  do  you 
not  see  that  all  the  virtue  that  is  in  baptism  is  ascribed  to  its 
mode,  and  that  Christ,  by  this  arrangement,  has  made  his 
spiritual  household  depend  upon  an  outward  act  ?  Surely  this 
cannot  be  so.  If  it  is,  then  Christ  himself  is  dependent  on 
immersion  for  a  Christian  Church.  "Will  any  one  say,  right 
out,  that  immersion  is  indispensable  to  a  divine  fitness  for  the 
Lord's-supper  ?  Yet  every  Baptist  Church,  by  the  rule  of 
close  communion,  does  say  this  very  thing.  Suppose  Christ 
had  made  immersion,  by  positive  law,  a  prerequisite  to  Chris- 
tian communion,  would  he  not  thereby  have  invested  immer- 
sion with  a  grace-communicating  power,  or  else  made  the 
right  to  commune  depend  on  an  act  of  legal  obedience  ?  Cer- 
tainly. Yet  what  he  did  not — indeed,  could  not — do,  his  mis- 
taken friends  have  done  for  him.  The  odium  of  this  ungra- 
cious, ugly-looking  act,  our  Baptist  brethren  have  entailed 
upon  themselves,  by  setting  themselves  apart  for  the  defense 
of  a  dogmatic  notion.  There  are  thousands  of  them  at  this 
day  who  feel  the  pinching  of  this  old  shoe  upon  their  feet — 
now  "  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace."  But 
they  cannot  open  the  door  of  their  Church  as  wide  as  the 
affections  of  their  hearts  without  admitting  that  immersion  is 
nothing  but  immersion,  and  that  the  only  indispensable  requi- 
site for  Christian  communion  in  the  Church  below,  or  in  heaven 
above,  is  "a  new  creation,"  which  no  sensible  Christian  will 
say  is  suspended  on  being  immersed  in  baptism. 

There  is  no  cure  for  this  hateful  bigotry  but  in  adopting  the 
following  principles  of  Christian  philosophy :  First,  not  to 
make  any  thing  a  term  of  cpmmunion  that  is  not  also  a  term 
of  salvation.    Second,  to  acknowledge  that  whosoever  is  good 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


45 


enough  for  Christ,  is  also  good  enough  for  Christ's  Church. 
Let  my  Baptist  brethren  do  this,  and  another  close-communion 
service  will  never  blot  their  Christian  fame.  I  am  happy  to 
see  that  the  English  Baptists  are  wiping  out  this  stain  from 
their  honorable  record — with  such  men  as  Spurgeon  in  the 
front  rank  of  these  noble  reformers.  Away  with  all  schis- 
matic bigotry  growing  out  of  spiritless  formalities  !  To  cher- 
ish them,  is  like  the  incubation  of  a  serpent's  egg.  If  any 
thing  is  hatched,  it  will  be  of  the  serpentine  breed.  Let  the 
egg  be  crushed. 

I  repeat  here,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Campbell  should 
have  added  to  the  already  extravagant  views  of  immersion, 
the  still  greater  one  of  regeneration  as  an  accompanying  grace. 
An  outward  rite,  invested  with  such  divine  value  as  to  be  a 
term  of  communion  at  the  Lord's  table,  could  be  easily  run 
out  into  a  term  of  salvation.  This  was  all  Mr.  Campbell  did, 
but  was  enough  to  change  an  error  into  mischievous  hetero- 
doxy. The  erroneous  appreciation  of  immersion  common  to 
all  Baptists,  was  raised  by  him  and  his  deluded  followers  to 
the  rank  of  an  ordained  medium  of  regeneration.  With  its 
old  devotees,  it  did  not  amount  necessarily  to  more  than  "the 
hay  and  stubble"  which  is  worked  into  the  building  of  a  church 
by  enthusiastic  worshipers  of  outward  forms,  even  when  the 
building  is  professedly  upon  a  solid  foundation.  These 
improper  materials  may  be  burned  out,  and  such  unfortunate 
souls  be  saved,  yet  so  as  by  fire.  But  in  the  hands  of  its  new 
friends — the  Reformers,  as  they  love  to  call  themselves — it  is 
more  than  hay  and  stubble :  it  is  a  fatal  heresy,  just  as  sure 
as  it  is  a  false  doctrine ;  and  it  is  a  false  doctrine,  just  as  sure 
as  our  justification  is  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  I  should  like 
to  know  exactly  how  the  "Reformers"  work  their  way  out  of 
this  difficulty.  I  see  how  they  are  entrapped,  but  do  not  see 
how  they  can  escape.  Perhaps  in  here  is  the  reason  why  they 
use  the  word  regeneration  rather  than  the  word  justification. 
It  is  nowhere  said  we  are  regenerated  by  faith  alone ;  but  it 
is  said  in  terms  and  in  sense  everywhere,  when  this  was  the 
theme,  that  we  are  justified  by  faith  ;  and  that  we  might  not 
fall  into  the  fatal  error  of  ritualistic  efficacy,  it  is  said  substan- 


46  Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 

tially,  and  signified  often,  that  we  are  " justified  by  faith 
alone;"  and  to  make  us  understand  what  " by  faith  alone M 
means,  it  is  added,  "  without  the  deeds  of  the  law."  Now, 
then,  even  admitting  immersion  to  be  required  by  absolute 
law— which  I  deny,  but  suppose  it  to  be  so — how  can  a  Camp- 
bellite  believer  have  the  infidel  hardihood  to  associate  re^en- 
eration  with  his  immersion  ?  In  so  doing,  does  he  not— must 
he  not — bring  in  the  deeds  of  the  law?  He  complies,  in  his 
baptism,  with  a  legal  deed,  and  ascribes  his  regeneration  to 
the  efficacy  of  his  baptism  in  some  way,  so  that  it  comes  in  as 
a  great  favor,  issuing  from  a  provisional  government.  But  if 
this  be  so  at  all  in  any  way,  to  any  extent,  so  that  baptism 
counts  among  the  reasons  God  regards  in  a  sinner's  regenera- 
tion, then  it  is  for  ever  false  that  we  are  justified  by  faith 
alone  without  the  deeds  of  the  law.  St.  Paul  says  the  Church 
was  once  kept  Under  the  law— the  law  of  sacrifices  and  sym- 
bols, shut  up  in  them  until  faith  came— that  is,  till  Christ 
came— after  which  we  were  to  be  no  longer  under  law  in  any 
of  its  former  uses.  We  were  all  in  this  special  sense  to  become 
the  children  of  Abraham,  having  our  faith  counted  to  us  for 
righteousness,  as  free  from  any  saving  virtue  in  baptism  as 
his  was  from  any  in  circumcision,  he  being  at  the  time  in 
uncircumcision.  To  this  divine  economy  the  Campbell ite 
idea  of  religion  is  in  fearful  antagonism.  I  care  not  how  they 
may  seek  to  escape  from  the  dilemma,  with  their  views  of 
regeneration,  they  must  eliminate  what  Paul  teaches  as  faith 
in  religion,  or  else  confess  that  their  faith,  is  directly  in  bap- 
tism as  containing  in  it  by  divine  arrangement  the  grace  of 
spiritual  regeneration.  Baptism  must  regenerate  by  its  own 
merit  as  an  ordained  agent,  or  else  it  has  no  part  in  the  work. 
The  dictum  of  the  Bible  has  settled  this,  as  a  fact  no  longer 
debatable,  that  human  salvation  is  either  all  of  works,  or  else 
all  of  grace.  A  condition  that  could  not  be  provided  for 
except  by  the  meritorious  death  of  God's  only  begotten  Son, 
sent  to  be  a  propitiation  for  our  sins,  can  never  admit  into 
the  reason  of  our  finding  acceptance  at  the  throne  of  grace 
any  value  derived  from  outward  forms.  The  moment  God 
should  admit  such  a  reason  for  reconciliation  into  the  scheme 


Sermon  on  Gal  Hi  26-29. 


47 


of  salvation,  he  would  frustrate  his  own  grace.  For  it  is  con- 
fessedly true,  that  if  righteousness  come  by  the  law,  or  even 
if  it  could  have  come  by  the  law,  Christ  died  in  vain.  The 
necessity  of  Christ's  death  in  order  to  reconciliation  with  God, 
settles  the  question  for  ever,  that  faith  in  Christ— faith  alone 
in  Christ— is  the  only  possible  way  in  which  a  sinner  can  find 
the  grace  of  regeneration.  "  That  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit, 
is  Spirit"— is  spiritual— wholly  spiritual.  But  if  baptism  has 
any  part  in  regeneration,  it  is  not  Spirit— it  is  not  wholly 
spiritual.  Baptism  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  be  incorporated 
into  what  our  Saviour  meant  by  Spirit,  when  he  so  signifi- 
cantly used  the  words  quoted  in  connection  with  the  new 
birth,  as  preached  to  Nicodemus.  Baptismal  regeneration  is 
utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  a  new 
creation.  New  creatures  in  Christ  Jesus  are  not  made  by 
immersion  in  water,  nor  by  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  a  so- 
called  priesthood,  boasting  of  apostolic  virtue  conveyed  along 
a  line  of  successional  descent.  These  canonical  gentlemen 
will  do  well  to  remember,  that,  judging  them  by  their  own 
pretentious  claims,  if  they  are  not  in  an  unbroken  line  of  suc- 
cession from  the  apostles,  they  are  nowhere.  I  will  risk  my 
judgment,  that  there  is  not  a  bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church  that  would  sue  for  an  estate  where  the  evidence 
on  which  his  recovery  of  it  depended  was  as  uncertain  and 
presumptuous  in  itself  as  is  the  evidence  of  an  uninterrupted 
line  of  prelates  from  Paul  or  Peter  down  to  him.  But  what 
could  not,  under  the  rules  of  evidence,  get  before  an  enlight- 
ened court,  is  pompously  claimed  as  certain,  and  on  this  vain- 
glorious pretense  they  contrive  to  keep  their  doctrine  of  sacra- 
mental efficacy  in  countenance.  Akin  to  this  delusive  folly  is 
Mr.  Campbell's  dream,  that  the  mighty  change  effected  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  and  described  as  a  new  creation,  actually  trans- 
pires while  passing  through  immersion.  Whatever  the  origi- 
nal friends  of  immersion  may  deny,  these  " Reformers"  must 
acknowledge  one  of  two  alternatives:.  Either  the  Holy  Ghost 
can,  and  does,  regenerate  souls  apart  from  baptism,  thus 
demonstrating  that  baptism  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  or  that 
regeneration  in  the  order  of  God  takes  place  always,  and  only 


48  Sermon  on  Gal  Hi.  26-29. 

in  connection,  with  legitimate  immersion  —  I  say  legitimate, 
because  I  do  not  suppose  they  believe  that  regeneration  fol- 
lows upon  a  mere  dipping  as  assuredly  as  a  universal  wetting 
does.  A  Campbellite  must  have  some  reason  for  promising 
regeneration  to  sinners  in  their  baptism,  besides  simple 
immersion.  This  by  itself  is  too  bold.  What  their  asso- 
ciated idea  is,  I  am  not  absolutely  advised.  I  assume 
as  certain  that  there  is  some  precedent  measure  —  some 
mental  preparation  —  some  ideal — to  be  recognized,  because, 
without  any,  they  would  stand  in  a  supremely  ridicu- 
lous attitude  before  all  Christendom  besides.  If  I  am  not 
mistaken  in  their  theory,  it  promises  regeneration  to  all  who 
rightly  come  to  immersion  as  a  divinely-appointed  ordeal  in 
the  economy  of  salvation.  Some  of  them  talk  so  unguard- 
edly as  to  justify  the  popular  inference,  that  if  sinners  will  just 
come  along  and  receive  immersion  at  their  hands,  they  pledge 
regeneration  as  a  certainty.  Even  this  does  not  surprise  me. 
It  is  one  of  the  evidences  of  a  false  theory  of  religion  that  its 
ardent  admirers  run  it  into  extravagances  which  outrage  all 
propriety.  Simple  truth  never  damages  itself  by  any  startling 
dogmatisms.  The  tendency  of  every  form  of  ritualism  is  to 
extremes,  and  the  ruling  idea  is  sure  to  crop  out  somewhere 
in  its  adventurous  speculations.  By  this  philosophy  it  is  easy 
to  track  the  mistake  of  Mr.  Campbell  to  its  origin.  His  start- 
ing-point is,  that  regeneration  followed  upon  immersion, 
because  God  had  ordained  immersion  as  the  only  lawful  way 
of  embracing  and  professing  the  Christian  religion.  As  to 
an  ordained  mode  of  baptism,  all  Baptists  stood  upon  the  same 
platform.  The  good  old  brotherhood  satisfied  their  estimate 
of  its  value  by  making  it  a  term  of  Church-membership,  and 
also  of  Christian  communion.  They  never  made  it  a  term  of 
salvation — a  fact  which  ought  long  ago  to  have  suggested  to 
them  the  idea  of  an  overestimation  in  what  they  really  claimed 
for  it.  It  is  sound  in  theology  to  say  that  any  thing  that  can 
be  done  without  in  the  salvation  of  sinners,  without  interrup- 
tion to  the  law  of  God's  own  righteousness,  must  be  without 
essential  value  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  elder  Baptists 
made  immersion  a  term  of  membership  and  communion  in 


Sermon  on  Gal.  id.  26-29. 


49 


the  Church :  Mr.  Campbell  makes  it  a  term  of  salvation,  by 
assuming  that  compliance  with  an  ordained  mode  of  baptism 
is  the  only  lawful  way  of  embracing  and  professing  Chris- 
tianity. This  he  could  not  do  by  declaring  immersion  essen- 
tial to  salvation,  simply  as  immersion.  But  this  he  did  do, 
by  representing  regeneration  as  a  certain  issuance  of  baptism, 
because  baptism  (that  is,  immersion)  was  the  divine  ordinance 
by  which  Christianity  was  to  be  professed.  The  regular  Bap- 
tists, before  Mr.  Campbell's  day,  held  and  practiced  upon  the 
apostolic  plan  as  to  the  relation  of  regeneration  and  of  bap- 
tism. They  held  to  a  divine  change,  a  real  conversion,  ante- 
cedent to  baptism — a  relation  of  one  to  the  other  as  clear  as 
practice  could  make  it.  But  as  if  blind  to  the  authority  of 
apostolic  practice  in  the  inauguration  of  the  Christian  Church, 
where  baptism  by  water  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  following 
upon  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  where  the  regular 
order  was  carried  out  always  immediately  after,  Mr.  Campbell 
seems  determined  to  place  the  two  in  such  relations  as  to 
make  regeneration  appear  as  superinduced — brought  about — 
by  baptism ;  whereby  he  degrades  the  Spirit  to  give  impor- 
tance to  immersion.  Water-baptism  is  regarded  by  the  Church 
generally  as  an  outward  sign  of  an  inward  grace — an  emblem 
of  spiritual  purification.  Mr.  Campbell  has  so  deranged  this 
order  as  to  make  the  inner  grace  only  correlative  evidence  of 
the  necessity  and  sacred  value  of  the  outward  act.  All  must 
see  if  this  ideal  of  regeneration  in  immersion  be  true,  then 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  subordinate  to  the  agency  of  water-baptism. 
There  is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion,  revolting  as  it  is  to 
sound  sense  and  godly  reverence.  I  lay  it  down  as  incontro- 
vertible, that  whatsoever  in  the  economy  of  salvation  is  indis- 
pensable in  working  out  its  grand  result,  is  its  most  essential 
element,  because  the  absence  of  this  at  any  stage  of  the  pro- 
ceeding is  fatal.  Therefore,  if  regeneration  only  takes  place 
in  immersion,  of  course  immersion  is  the  most  important  step 
in  the  case.  Mr.  Campbell,  as  I  understand  it,  teaches  that 
regeneration  never  takes  place  only  in  immersion,  and  never 
fails  to  take  place  in  concert  with  it.  This  is  the  theory, 
and,  as  I  have  said,  makes  immersion  the  "  one  thing  neecl- 
4 


50 


Sermon  oft  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


ful."  Now,  if  regeneration  is  not  superinduced  by  immersion 
as  an  ordained  agency,  then  regeneration  and  immersion  have 
no  more  relation  of  order  to  each  other,  as  cause  and  effect, 
than  regeneration  has  with  a  shower  of  rain.  If  regenera- 
tion can  take  place  independent  of  baptism,  then  baptism  is  not 
a  subsidiary  agent,  and  the  Campbellites  must  confess  either 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  subordinate  to  immersion,  and  cannot 
convert  a  sinner  without  it,  or  otherwise  that  immersion  is  a 
dead  letter  —  an  inert  form  —  having  no  part  or  place  in  the 
work  of  spiritual  regeneration.  So,  then,  the  whole  scheme 
of  the  Campbellites  is  a  delusion — an  icjnis-fatuus. 

From  the  report  of  a  Mormon  missionary  a  few  days  since, 
as  told  to  me,  I  learned  he  said  that  the  u  Mormons  were 
Baptists,"  (meaning,  I  suppose,  that  they  immersed  in  baptiz- 
ing,) and  "held  that  regeneration  and  baptism  always  came 
off  together."  Farther  he  said,  "  They  did  not  hold  that  this 
regeneration  fitted  for  heaven,  but  that  it  was  an  initial  step, 
after  which  one  of  their  twelve  apostles  laid  hands  ceremo- 
nially on  the  heads  of  these  novitiates,  and  conferred  upon 
them  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  deceivers  profess  to  be 
out  and  out  a  second  edition  of  the  original  Christian  Church, 
claiming  to  do  all  things  by  the  hands  of  their  twelve  apostles 
which  were  done  by  the  original  twelve.  He  said,  too,  that 
they  would  have  a  missionary  in  every  State.  This  Mormon 
heresy  seeks  to  curry  favor  with  the  world  by  putting  on  the 
"  liquid"  garment  of  the  good  old  Baptists,  and  offers  to 
insure  by  promising  regeneration  as  a  premium  upon  immer- 
sion. In  the  ecclesiastical  market,  regeneration  is  an  article 
that  will  always  sell  if  the  price  is  not  too  high.  If,  by  any 
device,  the  purchasers  can  be  persuaded  even  to  hope  that  the 
thing  offered  will  do,  the  least  cost  will  be  the  highest  recom- 
mendation. No  man  was  ever  better  qualified  to  inaugurate 
one  of  these  economical  errors  in  religion  than  Alexander 
Campbell,  and  no  one  ever  did  a  thing  of  the  kind  more  effect- 
ually. Of  pure  morals,  of  princely  intellect,  a  zealot  by 
nature,  he  transfused  himself  into  his  converts,  and  claiming 
to  know  that  he  was  right,  they  became  his  most  enthusiastic 
supporters.     My  convictions  of  truth  constrain  me  to  say, 


Sermon  on  Gal  in.  26-29. 


51 


that  I  regard  his  theory  of  religion,  as  at  most  and  at  best,  a 
plausible  error — shallow,  misleading,  and  delusive.  Nothing 
is  availing  in  religion  but  a  "  new  creation."  The  very  term 
is  argumentative,  and  settles  the  whole  question.  2sone  but 
God  can  create.  Salvation  is  not  through  modes,  but  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  "working  in  us  to  will  and  to  do." 

"We  come  now  to  the  conclusion  of  this  long  discourse,  and 
prefer  to  wind  up  with  a  summary  of  the  doctrines  and  prin- 
ciples which  have  been  argued  and  defended,  "For  ye  are  all 
the  children  of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus."  God  has  no 
children  here  but  by  faith  in  Christ,  therefore  all  that  believe 
according  to  this  rule  are  the  children  of  God — "  For  as  many 
of  you  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ,  have  put  on  Christ." 
Here  the  divine  order  that  those  who  are  to  be  made  Church- 
members  must  first  become  the  children  of  God  by  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus.  This  is  the  ground  of  their  right  to  Christian 
baptism.  It  is  evident  to  me  that  while  nothing  but  faith  in 
Christ  entitles  us  to  Christian  baptism,  so  nothing  but  Chris- 
tian baptism  entitles  us  to  Church-membership.  Hence,  when 
baptized  into  Christ  according  to  this  rule,  we  do  in  a  most 
befitting  sense  "put  on  Christ,"  this  being  the  design  and  end 
of  baptism.  0  what  an  obligation  is  this  !  How  the  Church 
would  shine  with  the  mellow  light  of  holiness  if  the  promised 
fidelity  to  Christ  were  always  practically  remembered  !  Bap- 
tism is  the  Christian  oath  of  allegiance  when  we  engage  at 
this  altar  of  consecration  to  put  on  Christ.  An  organic  visi- 
ble Church  cannot  exist  without  this.  Conversion  itself,  no 
matter  how  clear,  cannot  bring  any  one  within  the  visible 
Church,  or  entitle  to  any  of  its  peculiar  rights.  It  is  by  bap- 
tism, rightly  administered  and  rightly  accepted,  that  Church- 
enfranchisement  is  first  gained  and  afterward  maintained. 
The  hour  a  Church-member  becomes  knowingly  derelict  to 
the  obligations  assumed  when  he  solemnly,  ceremonially 
puts  on  Christ,  he  forfeits  his  Christian  franchise,  and  throws 
off  his  Christian  allegiance.  And  if  the  Church,  having 
knowledge  thereof,  suffers  these  apostate  members  to  remain 
within  the  sacred  city  of  God,  she  makes  herself  a  partaker 


52 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


of  their  sins.  When  discipline  is  given  up,  the  Church  is 
given  up.  It  is  not  election  that  makes  the  President,  but 
his  oath  of  office.  In  this,  and  through  this,  he  puts  on  the 
government,  becomes  its  distinct  representative,  and  is  a  prac- 
tical traitor  every  time  he  is  unfaithful  to  one  of  its  known 
obligations.  So  with  us  after  we  solemnly  put  on  Christ  in 
baptism.  We  are  bound  to  be  like  him,  to  do  like  him,  to 
represent  him  fully.  As  we  have  received  him,  so  we  are  to 
walk  in  him. 

It  is  in  the  unity  of  the  faith  that  we  find  the  true  exegesis 
of  the  negations  in  the  text,  "  There  is  neither  Greek  nor 
Jew,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor 
female  ;  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  Herein — that  is, 
in  the  special  unity  of  genuine  faith — all  but  Christ  appre- 
hended by  faith  is  lost  sight  of  by  every  real  convert.  Like 
Paul,  they  desire  to  be  found  in  Christ  without  any  of 
their  own  righteousness,  being  so  much  better  clad  in 
the  righteousness  of  faith.  In  Christ  there  is  nothing 
but  Christ,  therefore  we  can  carry  nothing  with  us  into 
Christ.  It  is  only  by  this  law  of  faith  that  Christ  can  be  all 
in  all.  The  Jew  may  be  a  Jew  still — physically  considered. 
According  to  the  politics  of  men,  he  may  be  proud  of  his 
national  blood,  but  as  a  sinner  justified  by  faith  alone,  he 
says  and  feels  it  to  be  divinely  true,  "  My  blood  did  me  no 
good — gave  me  no  preference  with  God."  I  am  born  again, 
but  it  is  not  [c  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of 
the  will  of  man,  but  of  God."  It  is  by  virtue  of  a  scheme 
which  God  alone  could  inaugurate,  and  at  the  instance  of  his 
own  self-moved  will,  that  I  am  justified— justified  by  faith 
alone.  At  the  cross  I  laid  down  my  Abrahamic  blood, 
counted  out  my  circumcision,  feeling  that  circumcision  is 
nothing,  and  that  I  must  not  plead  or  trust  in  any  thing  that 
does  not  enter  into  the  meritorious  ground  and  reason  of  a 
sinner's  pardon,  and  that  here  nothing  could  enter  but  "  Christ 
crucified."  He  paid  all  my  debt:  I  paid  none — had  nothing 
to  pay  with.  The  condition  of  my  release  was  to  feel  the 
enormity  of  my  debt,  the  absoluteness  of  my  poverty,  and  to 
accept  of  pardon  as  a  gracious  gift.    Such  is  the  peculiar 


Sermon  on  Gal  Hi.  2G-29. 


53 


tenor  and  spirit  of  this  economy,  that  it  could  not  be  built 
upon  any  basis  but  free,  unmerited  grace.  To  let  any  thing 
into  it  as  subsidiary,  would  have  frustrated  the  grace  of  God, 
and  proved  that  merit  enough  could  have  been  breathed  into 
works  to  have  rendered  pardon  just  on  their  account.  And  if 
merit  enough  to  justify  pardon  on  account  of  works  could  not 
be  imparted,  none  can  be  imparted. 

Here,  too,  the  Greek  lays  down  his  philosophy,  renounces 
his  thirty  thousand  gods,  and  worships  the  unknown  God 
whom  Paul  preached  to  his  countrymen  on  Mars'  Hill — Christ 
Jesus,  God  over  all,  blessed  for  ever.  Here  the  bondman 
from  his  humble  position  is  exalted  to  citizenship  in  the  house- 
hold of  faith,  and  invested  with  the  freedom  the  truth  alone 
can  give;  here  also  the  proud  freeman  is  brought  low,  laying 
all  his  honors  at  Jesus's  feet  ;  and  here  the  man  and  his  wife 
are  made  one  in  Christ,  not  by  marriage,  but  by  faith.  It  is 
the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  which  strikes  this 
level,  and  makes  all  of  God's  children  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 
How  unchristian-like  it  is  for  professors  of  religion  to  be 
saying,  "I  am  of  Paul,  or  of  Cephas,  or  even  of  Christ,"  in 
any  self-honoring  sense !  We  are  none  of  us  any  thing,  except 
what  we  are  in  Christ  by  simple  faith :  I  say  simple  faith, 
for  if  we  bring  in  with  it  a  mode  of  baptism  or  the  pride  of 
"  succession"  as  giving  us  any  thing  like  rank  in  the  house  of 
God,  our  faith  is  not  simple,  but  complex.  An  atom  of  this 
sort  cherished  in  the  heart  is  a  dead  fly  in  the  pot  of  ointment, 
and  its  odor  is  spoiled.  If  we  can  be  made  the  children  of 
God  only  by  faith,  by  that  same  faith  alone  can  we  remain  the 
children  of  God.  We  cannot  incorporate  with  it  any  other 
term  of  Christian  fellowship  without  perverting  it.  I  will 
here  ask  my  Baptist  brethren  if  they  included  their  estimate 
of  immersion  among  the  causative  reasons  of  their  acceptance 
with  God  through  Christ  in  the  hour  of  their  justification  ? 
If  not,  it  cannot,  since  that  be  made  a  term  of  communion. 
If  neither  you  nor  Christ  found  it  needful  to  regard  immer- 
sion as  included  in  the  plan  of  salvation,  and  for  reasons 
essential  to  the  plan,  it  never  can  be  legitimately  warped  in 
as  a  term  of  communion.    It  ought  to  be,  and  must  be,  given 


54 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


up.  If  I  am  a  child  of  God  by  faith,  without  immersion,  you 
have  no  right  to  disinherit  me.  All  of  us  who  are  justified 
by  faith  are  made  one  in  Christ,  and  cannot  be  divinely 
divided  at  the  communion-table. 

I  wish  to  be  distinctly  understood,  and  I  now  declare,  that 
I  do  not  in  any  sense  denounce  immersion  as  a  valid  mode  of 
baptism.  I  hold  that  any  mode  is  valid  where  water  is  used 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
the  administrator  and  the  subject  properly  understand  and 
rightly  appreciate  the  nature,  design,  and  end  of  this  Chris- 
tian rite.  But  I  capitally  doubt  whether  baptism  is  ever  prop- 
erly administered  to  adults  when  it  is  simply  done  as  a  matter 
of  course  in  the  order  of  time.  It  is  both  misused  and  abused, 
unless  the  recipient  is  made  to  feel  its  true  design,  and  its 
moral  obligations.  Our  present  disciplinary  rule  is  well 
adapted  to  these  ends,  if  our  pastors  will  fully  do  their  duty. 
My  observation  is,  there  is  too  much  hurry  and  too  little 
preparation  for  baptism.  My  advice  is,  take  time,  exam- 
ine closely,  and  never  baptize  another  convert  into  the 
Church  until,  like  David,  they  swear  to  keep  all  God's  right- 
eous judgments.  Make  them  feel  that  every  willful 
departure  from  this  engagement  is  spiritual  perjury.  Do 
this,  and  the  ruinous  amalgamation  of  the  Church  with 
the  world  will  cease — it  will  never  cease  any  other  way. 
A  loose  manner  of  receiving  members  will  fill  the  Church 
with  those  pestilent  offenders,  who,  if  they  were  put  on  trial 
for  their  irregularities  or  violations  of  a  sacred  contract,  would 
tell  you  they  never  promised  not  to  do  these  things.  And 
while  there  would  be  some  hypocrisy  in  the  plea,  there  would 
be  too  much  truth  in  it  to  be  creditable  to  the  proper  door- 
keepers of  the  house  of  God.  Let  us,  brethren,  adopt  a 
method  of  preparing  candidates  for  admission  in  the  Church 
whereby  we  may  know  that  they  fully  comprehend  the  obli- 
gations their  baptism  imposes.  Then  Methodism  will  bud 
afresh,  bearing  sweet  blossoms  and  rich  fruits. 

My  position  is,  that  baptism  is  not  an  ordinance,  for  then  it 
would  be  a  mode,  and  compliance  would  place  modality  in 
baptism  in  the  same  category  with  repentance.  Repentance 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


55 


is  a  moral  necessity.  The  merit  of  Christ's  death  cannot  be 
appropriated  without  it.  Just  so  it  would  be  with  a  prescribed 
mode  of  baptism.  By  divine  law,  the  observance  of  it  would 
be  a  moral  necessity,  and  to  conceive  of  the  merit  of  Christ  as 
beiug  appropriated  for  the  salvation  of  a  sinner  while  failing 
or  refusing  to  comply,  is  too  revolting  even  for  consideration. 
Let  me  inquire  of  immersionists  generally,  and  of  the  Camp- 
bellites  especially,  whether  any  one  among  them  believes  that 
a  penitent  sinner,  simply  determining  that  he  would  not  be 
immersed  while  reverently  intending  to  be  baptized  into 
Christ,  when  converted,  would  in  any  way  at  all  impede  his 
justification  by  faith?  If  they  answer,  as  I  suppose  they  will, 
we  do  not  believe  sucb  intention  would,  or  should,  hinder  his 
free  justification  through  Jesus  Christ,  then  this  question  is 
fully  settled.  Any  thing  that  has  not  moral  virtue  enough  in 
it  to  make  a  sentimental  rejection  of  it  a  bar  to  divine  favor, 
is  not,  as  a  thing,  of  divine  ordination.  My  readers  will  see 
that  I  hold  to  baptism  as  a  divine  institution,  and  to  the 
observance  of  it  as  a  Christian  rite.  Now,  here  is  the  pinch 
of  my  closing  argument :  I  believe  that  every  considerate 
Baptist  in  the  land  will  admit  that  the  utter  rejection  of 
immersion,  and  indeed  of  all  modality  in  baptism,  as  modal- 
ity, while  simple  ritual-baptism  was  kept  up  in  honor  of 
Christ's  institution,  would  not  infract  a  single  principle  in 
baptism  material  to  its  design.  And  in  its  design  lies  all  its 
religious  value. 

My  second  position  is,  that  the  unity  of  the  faith  proves  the 
unity  of  the  Church.  By  the  unity  of  the  Church,  I  do  not 
mean  the  absorption  of  all  into  one.  This  would  be  the  mere 
triumph  of  some  one  form  of  Churchism  over  the  true  idea 
of  unity.  There  is  a  striking  likeness  between  the  two  theo- 
ries, requiring  the  absorption  of  all  other  Church-organiza- 
tions into  their  own  in  order  to  be  in  the  Church  at  all.  On 
one  side  we  place  the  Roman  Catholics  and  the  Episcopalians  : 
each  of  these  claim  to  be  "  the  Church,"  by  virtue  of  apostolic 
succession.  On  the  other  side  we  place  the  immersionists: 
these  claim  to  be  "the  Church,"  because  nothing  but  immer- 
sion is  baptism,  and  they  are  the  true,  unadulterated  immer- 


56  Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 

sion  Church.  These  parties  cannot  both  be  right.  This  fact 
makes  it  morally  certain  that  both  are  wrong.  The  grounds 
upon  which  each  claims  the  distinction  of  genuineness  are 
extraneous  to  every  thing  intrinsic  to  the  true  Church,  accord- 
ing to  all  the  delineations  given  by  the  apostles.  As  for 
instance,  it  is  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and 
drink,  but  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost." 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  the  Church  of  God.  To  this  institu- 
tion, as  Christ  set  it  up,  " meats  and  drinks"  (by  which  all 
outward  things  are  meant)  are  extraneous  to  it.  They  are 
foreign  from  the  composition  of  the  spiritual  Church  of 
Christ,  are  not  intrinsic,  cannot  be.  When  the  true  Church 
is  sought  for,  the  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  lop  off  all  these 
extraneous  things,  or,  in  other  words,  go  beyond  the  line  of 
meats  and  drinks  into  the  spiritual  chamber  of  the  soul,  and 
see  if  you  can  find  there  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  if  found  therein,  the  true  Church  is  found.  These  spirit- 
ual ones  make  up  the  true  Church  of  Christ.  These  right- 
eous, peaceful,  joyful  believers  are  the  members  of  Christ's 
body,  whether  found  in  one  Church,  as  now  made  up,  or  in 
all.  Doubtless  in  all  there  is  a  remnant  according  to  the  elec- 
tion of  grace.  But  I  cannot  dismiss  this  subject  just  here. 
There  is  a  Church  among  us  in  which  are  more  "meats  and 
drinks,"  and  these  more  pompously  served  up  than  elsewhere, 
bat  in  it  is  less  of  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost  than  in  any  other  Protestant  Church.  I  speak  of  these 
intrinsic  evidences  of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  Paul  under- 
stood and  applied  them ;  which,  I  believe,  was  in  the  sense  of 
an  outspoken  joy — a  religion  which  told  of  its  glorious  origin 
in  songs  and  words  of  suitable  praise.  But  the  Episcopalians 
feel  and  express  disgust  at  all  emotional  rapture,  all  religious 
excitement.  I  verily  believe  that  the  ministers  of  this  sect 
have  more  faith  in,  and  a  decided  preference  for,  a  member- 
ship that  would  scrupulously  attend  to  their  ritualistic  worship 
in  Church-seasons,  and,  in  their  turn,  play  cards  and  dance, 
over  one  that  would  denounce  these  pleasures  and  occasion- 
ally overflow  with  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  Why  is  this  ? 
Because  the  extraneous  has  been  overrated,  and  the  intrinsic 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


67 


undervalued.  They  cannot  be  safely  bundled  together, 
Paul's  negative  principle  must  be  applied.  That  which  can- 
not impart  grace  must  be  nothingized.  But  here  is  a  Church 
anxious  for  Church-unity,  yet  sees  no  possible  way  to  bring 
it  about  but  by  the  absorption  of  all  others  into  herself,  and 
this,  in  her  complacency,  she  considers  a  necessity — not  a 
compromise.  A  necessity,  because  there  is  no  other  apostolic 
Church  but  herself;  and  if  she  were  swallowed  up  in  the 
immersion  Church,  claiming  the  same  exclusive  rights,  but 
on  a  different  line,  it  would  be  really  Church  -  extinction. 
Theirs  is  the  only  boat  in  the  heavenly  line  that  is  running 
under  the  apostolic  charter,  and  we  are  kindly  informed  that 
we  had  better  dissolve  and  come  aboard  of  this  old  Church 
craft.  But  I  solemnly  demur,  till  she  shows  her  papers  signed 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  aforetime.  I  know  no  other  divine 
succession.  This,  by  the  grace  of  Gocl,  we  Methodists  have 
in  common  with  other  Churches  who  hold  by  Christ  the 
Head.  The  unity  of  the  Church  can  only  be  in  the  oneness 
and  the  sameness  of  faith  and  Christian  experience.  The 
saints  who  are  perfected  by  the  harmonious  labors  of  Christ's 
appointed  ministers — Paul  to  plant  and  Apollos  to  water — all 
come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ.  Now  will  any  ritualist  or  any  immersionist  say  this 
status  in  religion  cannot  be  reached  except  through  their 
fancied  mediums?  I  hope  not.  But  if  this  state  can  be 
reached  without  passing  through  either  of  their  glorified 
ordeals,  then  neither  of  them  can  enter  into  the  reasons  for 
Christian  fellowship.  As  they  cannot  bring  in  any  thing 
saving,  the  absence  of  them  cannot  justify  any  discount  on 
Christian  character ;  yet  every  Episcopalian  thinks  that  I  am 
not  as  well  qualified  to  consecrate  the  elements  for  a  sacra- 
ment as  I  would  have  been  if  I  had  been  inducted  into  my 
office  by  one  of  their  bishops.  This  is  equivalent  to  the 
opinion  that  Christ  cannot  have  a  regular  ministry  upon  the 
earth,  unless  it  is  set  in  order  by  the  imposition  of  Episcopal 
hands.  Shocking  to  relate — immodest,  not  to  say  impious,  to 
claim.    And  every  immersionist  that  says  I  am  not  worthy  to 


58 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


commune  with  him  because  I  was  not  immersed,  virtually 
declares  that  his  own  worthiness  to  commune  is  derived  from 
immersion,  for  he  rejects  me  on  this  footing  alone.  To  all 
these  selfish,  exclusive  views  I  am  opposed  on  the  ground  of 
Christian  charity.  If,  with  all  these  canonized  notions,  -these 
brethren  are  compelled  to  believe  that  a  large  part  of  all  the 
souls  redeemed  from  earth  and  sin,  and  now  in  glory,  reached 
their  heavenly  home  from  folds  outside  of  their  particular 
pastures,  then  it  is  passing  strange  that  either  persists  in  dis- 
uniting the  Church  of  Christ  on  these  outside  and  immaterial 
issues  —  immaterial,  because  any  Christian  organization  in 
which  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  taught, 
embraced,  believed,  and  followed,  can,  will,  and  does  furnish 
as  many  souls  meet  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  without  the 
claim  of  succession  or  the  charm  of  immersion,  as  it  could 
with  either  or  both  of  these  appended.  Will  any  one  among 
them  deny  this  ?  If  so,  let  him  declare  it,  and  I  will  vouch 
for  his  being  ever  afterward  under  the  ban  of  public  opinion 
as  a  senseless  bigot.  If,  then,  in  spite  of  sectarian  preferences 
and  prejudices,  they  are  constrained  to  believe  that  heaven  is 
daily  filling  up  with  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  who 
were  neither  born  nor  nourished  in  their  particular  inclosures, 
let  all  agree  and  declare  that  souls  fit  for  heaven  are  fit  for  fel- 
lowship anywhere  and  everywhere  where  Christians  commune. 
This  charity  will  abolish  close  communion. 

As  to  the  Episcopalians,  the  bar  to  free  communion  arises 
from  their  vain  conceit  of  priestly  efficacy  transmitted  through 
apostolic  succession.  Hence,  they  believe  that  when  I  and 
others  out  of  their  line  consecrate  the  sacramental  elements, 
they  remain  as  they  were,  and  we  eat  mere  bread  and  drink 
mere  wine;  but  when  they  officiate,  the  communicants  do  vir- 
tually eat  Christ's  flesh  and  drink  his  blood.  They  are  not 
close-communionists,  I  believe,  so  far  as  the  laity  is  concerned; 
but  unless  the  elements  are  consecrated  by  their  priesthood,  they 
are  without  sacramental  value  for  anybody.  To  thinking, 
reasoning  men,  I  say  this  sacramentalism  is  barefaced  heresy. 
It  is  both  remarkable  and  significant  that  this  divisive  spirit 
as  to  the  Lord's-supper  should  have  made  its  appearance 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


59 


only  in  two  branches  of  the  Church  accredited  as  orthodox. 
These  are  the  Protestant  Episcopalian  and  the  regular  Baptist 
Churches.  In  each  of  them,  as  I  understand  causation,  the 
divisive  agency  is  perfectly  similar,  and  in  each  runs  directly 
into  what  we  call  " sacramentalism."  We  mean  by  it  some 
specialty  wherein  or  whereby  efficacy  is  obtained.  Episcopa- 
lians derive  it  from  their  apostolic  lineage.  The  Baptists  find 
it  in  the  doctrine  that  immersion,  in  its  mode,  is  a  divine 
ordinance.  The  assumption  that  God  has  chosen  immersion 
out  of  all  the  possible  ways  of  using  water  in  baptism,  and 
that  Christ  sanctified  it  by  being  immersed  himself,  couples 
itself  naturally  and  logically  with  the  belief  that  some  sacra- 
mental efficacy  is  conveyed  or  confirmed  by  immersion ;  or, 
at  any  rate,  that  the  regular  agents  and  subjects  of  it  are 
invested  thereby  with  peculiar  exclusive  rights  and  privileges. 
Unless  they  take  this  ground,  their  rejection  of  other  Chris- 
tians from  the  Lord's  table  is  an  arbitrary  illegality. 

We  come  now  to  remark  upon  the  spirit  of  free  commun- 
ion, its  moral  beauty  and  perfect  harmony  with  the  genius 
of  our  holy  religion.  See  Paul's  lively  description  of  the  true 
Church:  "For  as  the  body  is  one,  and  hath  many  members, 
and  all  the  members  of  that  one  body,  being  many,  are  one 
body,  so  also  is  Christ;  for  by  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized 
into  one  body,  whether  we  be  Jews  or  Gentiles,  whether  we 
be  bond  or  free,  and  have  been  all  made  to  drink  into  one  t 
Spirit;  for  the  body  is  not  one  member,  but  many."  We 
may  be  baptized  into  several  branches  of  the  Church,  denom- 
inationally considered,  but  in  the  order  of  God  we  cannot  be 
baptized  into  but  one  Church — the  general  Church  which 
constitutes  the  mystical  body  of  Christ.  How  strange  that 
any  one  Church  on  earth  should  assume  virtually  to  expel 
from  the  general  Church  all  the  members  thereof  who  differ 
from  them  as  to  how  water  should  be  applied  to  believers  in 
their  baptism  !  To  bar  any  one  from  the  Lord's-supper  who 
claims  to  be  a  believer  and  a  member  of  Christ's  body, 
because  he  is  not  a  Baptist,  is  to  declare  that  there  is  no 
other  divinely-acknowledged  Church  but  their  own  ;  or  admit- 
ting him  to  be  a  member  of  Christ's  general  Church,  and 


60 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


refuse  him  the  communion  because  he  has  not  been  immersed, 
is  to  be  guilty  of  schism  in  the  body  of  Christ.  Either 
alternative  is  a  sad  one.  The  whole  dilemma  comes  of  invest- 
ing immersion  with  the  vain  conceit  of  special  divine  com- 
placency. Strong  figurative  expressions,  referring  to  baptism, 
do  frequently  occur  in  the  lew  Testament,  and  they  com- 
mend it  to  our  attention  as  an  institution  of  moral  force  and 
meaning,  chiefly,  however,  as  an  open  formal  espousal  of 
Christ.  To  prevent  just  such  evils  as  have  been  forced  upon 
it,  and  to  rescue  it  from  all  possible  connection  with  sacra- 
mental efficacy,  Peter  tells  us  that  we  are  "figuratively  saved 
by  baptism" — not  really,  as  if  there  were  any  virtue  in  baptism 
— but  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  faith  in  which  we 
thereby  profess.  No  moral  change  is  effected  in  us  by  bap- 
tism, either  directly  or  indirectly,  not  even  the  putting  away 
of  the  filth  of  the  flesh.  It  is  simply  the  answer  of  a  good 
conscience  toward  God.  The  true  convert  glories  in  his  bap- 
tism because  he  is  baptized  into  Christ,  who  was  once  deliv- 
ered unto  death  for  his  sins,  but  by  his  inherent  divinity  was 
raised  again  for  his  justification.  The  common  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  great  confirmatory  seal  of 
gospel  doctrine,  should  be  a  common  bond  of  unity,  fraternity, 
and  fellowship  among  all  the  people  of  God.  Names,  and 
questions,  and  modes,  should  all  be  merged  and  lost  in  the 
tie  which  unites  in  the  faith  and  hope  of  a  common  salvation. 

If,  in  this  long  argument,  I  have  said  a  word  to  aggrieve 
any  child  of  God,  it  is  from  my  infirmity,  and  not  from  my 
heart.  "  Grace,  mercy,  and  peace  be  upon  all  them  who  love 
the  Lord  Jesus  in  sincerity."  It  is  true,  in  my  comments 
upon  what  I  think  absurd  in  doctrine,  I  may  have  impigned 
upon  some  morbid  sensibility,  but  even  this  was  not  prompted 
by  unkind  feeling.  My  strongest  remarks,  perhaps,  lie  against 
the  close-communion  error  of  my  dear  Baptist  brethren.  I 
say  what  I  mean— my  dear  Baptist  brethren.  If  I  did  not 
love  them,  I  should  not  wish  to  commune  with  them,  nor 
have  them  commune  with  me.  I  do  long  to  see  free  Chris- 
tian communion  among  us.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  spend 
breath  about  it,  there  is  no  heart-cheering  union  between  us, 


Sermon  on  Gal.  in.  26-29. 


61 


and  never  can  be  until,  with  open  hearts,  we  commune 
together.  I  do  not  ask  the  Baptists  to  give  up  immersion  as 
their  chosen  mode  of  baptism,  but  to  reduce  their  estimate 
of  it  to  the  level  of  Paul's  negation,  when  he  said  "  Circum- 
cision is  nothing,  and  uncircumcision  is  nothing."  Come, 
brethren,  we  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  We  never  can  be  one 
in  immersion;  and  if  we  could,  it  might  be  in  immersion  only. 
If  we  are  one  in  Christ,  and  will  quit  disputing  about  out- 
ward things  and  lovingly  celebrate  our  Saviour's  dying  love 
together,  we  soon  shall  love  one  another  as  Christ  loved  us. 
Before  I  die,  I  hope  to  see  all  these  old  stumbling-blocks 
taken  out  of  the  way,  and  all  the  Churches  of  Christ  drink- 
ing in  the  genial  spirit  of  the  apostle  in  his  salutation  to  the 
Corinthian  brethren,  "  Unto  the  Church  of  God  which  is  at 
Corinth,  to  them  that  are  sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus,  called  to 
be  saints  with  all  that  in  every  place  call  upon  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord — both  theirs  and  ours — grace  be  unto 
you  and  peace  from  God  our  Father,  and  from  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ." 

The  great  apostle,  set  by  divine  commission  for  the  defense 
of  the  gospel,  said,  "One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism." 
This  comprehensive  description  of  the  Christian  scheme  is 
full  and  conclusive.  One  Lord :  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jewish 
Church  and  the  Christ  of  the  Christian  Church,  "  both  theirs 
and  ours."  One  faith  :  all  true  believers  realize  the  great  idea 
of  one  faith,  and  this  one  faith  is  well  called  the  faith  of  God, 
because  it  rests  upon  him  as  he  rests  upon  himself,  satisfied 
that  all  is  sure  in  good  time.  One  baptism:  the  Christian 
baptism,  of  course,  all  Jewish  baptisms  having  ended  in  the 
ceremonial  priestly  washing  of  Christ.  But  one  baptism  can- 
not mean  one  mode  of  baptism,  for  baptism,  in  its  evangelical 
import,  cannot  exist  in  mode.  Its  material  essence  must  exist 
in  its  gospel  design.  And  perhaps,  after  all,  the  baptism  of 
the  Holy  Ghost — the  thing  typified  by  water-baptism — is  the 
"one  baptism"  of  the  apostle.  But  a  truce  to  all  arguments 
and  explanatory  comments.  Surely  my  brethren  of  every 
name  will  join  with  me  to  crown  Jesus  our  Saviour  Lord  of 
all.    On  earth  he  is  our  only  hope,  in  heaven  he  will  be  the 


62 


Sermon  on  Gal.  Hi.  26-29. 


center  of  all  attraction.  In  his  vision  of  the  everlasting  city 
of  God,  John  says,  "And  I  saw  no  temple  therein,  for  the 
Lord  God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it. 
And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the  moon,  to 
shine  in  it,  for  the  glory  of  the  Lord  did  lighten  it,  and  the 
Lamb  is  the  light  thereof."  Surely  in  heaven  we  shall  all  be 
one :  there  shall  be  neither  Methodist  nor  Presbyterian, 
neither  Baptist  nor  Episcopalian.  Made  one  in  Christ  on 
earth  by  faith  in  him,  by  faith  in  him  at  the  expense  of  all 
denominational  plumage,  the  epitaph  upon  the  tomb  of  each 
will  be,  "A  sinner  saved  by  grace,"  and  in  heaven,  harping 
upon  the  harps  of  God.  But  one  stanza  shall  be  sung  by  all, 
"  Unto  him  that  loved  us  and  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  his 
own  blood,  and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests  unto  God  and 
his  Father,  to  him  be  glory  and  dominion,  for  ever  and  ever. 
Amen."  0  then  let  us  come  together  here  and  now  in  the 
sweet  fellowship  of  Christ!  Let  us  keep  the  unity  of  the 
spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and,  in  the  loving  companionship 
of  earth,  realize  a  growing  meetness  for  the  final  communion 
of  saints  in  heaven  !    Amen  and  amen. 


Date  Due 


Novl7'3C 


SEP 


- 


L.  B.  Cat.  No.  1 137 


Borrowed  froa  Peacock  Col. 


975.61    N873      P     ,  2r, 


I-"e  en  a 


1TTC.  ?a.rrphlets 


DATE  DUE 


ISSUED  TO 


975.61       N873       P  P7018 


fx  <p 


■ 


